New Sieg X3 CNC conversion

[Crevice Reamer]

Originally Posted by 48racefan I have seen some bundles from Keiling on eBAY and sent him a message on a custom bundle, but have not heard back from him. Most of his packages have x3 NEMA 23 Steppers, drivers, and power supplies. I wanted to go with the NEMA 34 640 in/oz for the Z Axis. - John

Keling HAS an X3 package with 640 oz for Z. You just have to scroll down a little farther. The Power supply is a little anemic though. you might want to upgrade it.

CR.

[48racefan]

I am going to take a look again; I cannot believe I missed it! I saw his N34 Steppers as solo but missed the bundle...

-John

[48racefan]

Hello everyone,

I received my SX3 as scheduled from Grizzly. I have ordered my conversion kit from CNC FUSION and it should arrive next week. I also have all my electronics as well. I thought I would share some pictures of the mill with you all. I have also taken the mill apart and have got it ready to send out for powder coating this coming week. Stayed tuned for more updates. I have a lot of exciting ideas and photos I will be posting as my project progresses.

[Crevice Reamer]

Wow 48! I've never SEEN one taken that far down. You've taken things apart that no one else but the factory has. You are really making this mill your own! I can't wait to see more of this interesting project. Looks like you'll be having lots of help. Are they twins?

Are you going to replace the spindle bearings? Don't forget to remove that gib from the vertical slide.

Can you give us disassembly details? I'm sure there were some tricky parts that would be handy to know about.

Thanks,

CR.

[neilw20]

When reassembling make sure the quill lock does not get stuck.
While you have it in pieces some good fixes here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...ighlight=quill
like the intermittent tapping switch, which I still have to fix.
It is useless for fragile taps.

[48racefan]

Interesting info, thanks guys for sharing this - I did not notice any strange sounds. I followed the break-in procedures in the manual precisely I was actually surprised that the machine was as quiet as it was. I wonder if they have corrected this issue as noted in other threads?

If I chose to replace the bearings I wonder if I should just go ahead with the spindle upgrade from Syil ( http://www.syilamerica.com/catalog/p...dosk1f1jma06o2 )? Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

I did order the quick change Collet Set ( http://www.syilamerica.com/catalog/p...bp36ocp9lasof1 ) from Syil but was a little disappointed as I thought I was receiving the one depicted in the online catalog CC. It lists the same one that ships with their SX3.

Surprisingly, the breakdown was easier than I thought it would be. I took my time in doing so and I had it apart in about 5-6 hours. I will take some time and document my lessons learned from this.

CR – Yes they are twins. I am not sure who was more excited about the purchase, them or me. My son operating the Mill, Caiden kept saying, this is so great! I let them both take turns and drill some holes in a piece of scrap wood after we ran it through break in; they loved it!

I was experimenting with what I was going to use for a computer to run MACH3 software on. I had access to a couple of thin-client computers that run Windows XP Embedded. These have no hard drives, as they are all solid-state devices. I think that they would be perfect for this and the Form-Factor is perfect!

I was planning to break it down and mount the board from the device inside the enclosure with the breakout boards and drivers. These produce almost no heat at all. They are a little tricky to add software if you have no experience with them. They are also very limited on space. You can add a USB drive and then you can install just about anything you want.

One issue I ran into after installing MACH3 was the openGL drivers for XP were not installed on the device so they need to be added for MACH3 to run.
You can pick one of these up on eBay for under a $100 easy.

I also have set aside a DELL 19” LCD flat panel for this machine (a bit of overkill I suppose but I had one at home I could use). I was able to find a touch screen upgrade kit that I purchased (again on eBay) with shipping for about $150.00. I plan on doing away completely with the mouse and keyboard for running MACH3. I can do my design on another machine where I can sit and relax and then grab it over my HOME NETWORK from the machines PC.

As a side note, the Touch Panel Upgrade fits seamlessly inside the flat panel. You just need to take the bezel apart and place it inside the same enclosure. I will include some phased install photos when I get it going.

[neilw20]

I chucked out XP and now use Win2000.
XP goes off into the weeds to often frigging with helpsrv.exe and that is documented by MS and they say to use SP2.
It still goes stupid with SP2.
Anything below 2GHz using XP will created gremlins.
Win2000 with 1/2G memory on a 1.4GHz machine is good.
Good luck trying to run Mach3 through a USB port.
Anything with USB to parallel will need resynchronization hardware to work properly.
Depends very much on your BOB.

[skullworks]

I do all my serious "work" in Win2K. ( CAD/CAM )

I use Linux and EMC2 to controll my machines though.

XP is for playing F.E.A.R. and other trivial games.

[48racefan]

The pro about using Windows XP EMBEDDED is that it only install the very bare minimum to run the operating system and not all the other garbage when choosing a typically install of XP. These units have parralel printer port on them; I am not going to use a USB to DB25 converter to connect to the breakout board.

I would be interested in knowing which thread exactly is spawning helpsrv.exe on the OS. This is my real area of expertise (my day to day) and I may be able to pin this down and identify the root cause. I can share some tips with you on OS Tuning as well as best practice setup for a machine used for this type of setup.

The MACH3 Install is on the local machine. The USB would only be used for an additional hard drive to install other applications if so desired or for storing other CAD drawings and such...

Thanks for this valuable information though - I am going to see if I can reproduce the issues you are referring too.

[48racefan]

I was considering using an UBUNTU release on the machine with EMC2 as well; however, I have heard plenty of good things about running MACH3 so opted for XP. I have had very good luck with XP; but I work in IT and so it is much easier to support.

I will most likely try both and compare.

[neilw20]

I have been writing software for a living for 30 years.
I'm stuffed if I know what spawns helpsrv.exe or what it does.
Have you ever seen an XP machine start some unexpected disk activity after 20 minutes or so. What is scheduling that garbage?
I might disappear the file and wait for it to complain.
winsrv.dll plays a bit of havoc occasionally.
As long as i don't have to port any thing to DEC RSX11 environment ever again I think I will survive. Good place to learn file sharing strategies though.
Best thing about the porting is you eventually get to put it all back in a PC and bin the monster air conditioning system and battery room!
Haven't played with EMC2 but I like Mach3. Which is better?
I would like to run a QNX platform. What could be better than that?

[48racefan]

Is the indexing service enabled on the machine? I have seen this when the service is running, and the machine is in idle or under little use, it will start indexing the file system.

I would be interested in what people have to say about EMC2 and MACH3; a side by side comparison perhaps?