HF 8X12 CNC Conversion starting...Need Help

[ronncat]

Today was the day!!! I fabricated a bottom chip guard for the screw enclosure. Put a little bend in the rearmost portion. Wala... done!!

So I got out the blasting cabinet and went crazy. I originally intended to polish a few parts, but it's much more fun to just blast away. Anyhow here are the parts after glass beading (and a little polish on one). Note there are only 6 main parts that required milling. The rest could have been cut out of sheet.



Started by assembling the saddle and apron extensions. Note the box formed by the apron and the bolttom panel. This area will be nearly impervious to chips and moisture. I think that it will make a great place to mount my Z axis home switch. I'm considering mounting the X axis switch under the cross slide adjacent to the ballscrew perhaps. This way, they will not be exposed to anything.



Finshed putting everything back together. Here are some views of the finished conversion.



And then the obligatory bling shot



The final two pics show the ballscrew covers in place. Note one of them is SS, the other blue steel. Oh well...at least I got a good deal on one of them.




Now I turn my attention to the electronics side. Need to design the Hall Effect home switches and mounts. I will probably more or less duplicate the controller box that I built for my mill. Things are starting to show up here, so I can start building soon. Fedex came twice today and UPS once. Another couple of days and everything should be here!!

Bill, Thanks for the props on the Z axis motor disappearing act. I can't take credit for that though. Someone else did it and I happened across the picture on the net. Still contemplating what type of spindle sensor to use...I'll let you know.

Thanks everyone for looking and please feel free to comment and give me your suggestions on how I can improve my design

[cornbinder23]

I hate you!!!
just kidding looks AWESOME!!! working on getting the things together for my conversion now and picked up a set of those spring covers on the "bay" last week, again that is a fantastic build Ron good on ya

JTCUSTOMS

[blades]

Wow, and I thought my 7x10 conversion was clean.
VERY nice job roncat! Very professional level conversion, worthy of fetching top dollar as a kit.

Did you mention in your thread where you sourced the leadscrew clockspring type cover? I was wanting to do something like that on my 7x10.

[ronncat]

Guys,

Thank you so much for your kind words

Remember...a little over a year ago, I was pretty much a total metalworking newbie. Almost everything I know today has been gathered from this site. I have no plans to produce a kit or plans for this.. Too many other things going on in life. I am more than happy to help out anyone who does have aspirations to do so, or even to do a one off of my design. Remember what they say... Imitation is the sincerest form of Flattery...

By the way Blades, One of the ballscrew covers was an ebay find. The proper size is really hard to find. I checked for a couple of months for a second one. I found the blue steel one at McMaster Carr. It was roughly a third of the cost of what the manufacturer quoted for a single cover. Good luck!!

[blades]

Remember...a little over a year ago, I was pretty much a total metalworking newbie.

You've certainly done very well for yourself. I've worked with machinists that had years of experience that couldn't build anything with that level of craftsmanship.

BTW, what's that screw cover called? I used several different search terms on McMaster, but didn't come up with anything. Thanks in advance!

[cornbinder23]

I believe they are called conical spring steel bellows or telescopic spring steel bellows, I found a couple on ebay for a decent price but are pretty large for my application but I am going to try and use them anyway they will just look like the one part that doesnt belong haha!!

JTCUSTOMS

[ronncat]

Blades,
Try page 3748. They are there under telescoping tapered metal covers. They are made by Centry Covers, but McMaster Carr doesn't tell you that.

[blades]

Thanks guys! I'm usually pretty good at finding stuff like that, but I was lazy last night, opting to ask instead of look.

[bodysnatcher]

Well i haven't posted cause i finally landed another machist job, and moved in a haas mill the last few weeks, but looking at what you have done, my hats off to you, 37 years at this trade amazes me when i see what you have done in a year,,,,i would produce your kits for you...BUT i do see one little problem in all your hard work...

It's far too pretty to turn on and use. YUP you have created a master showcase CNC lathe, that simply cannot be used for anything cause it will get dirty....

LMFAO....you are awesome bud....Kudos..........

[blades]

It's far too pretty to turn on and use. YUP you have created a master showcase CNC lathe, that simply cannot be used for anything cause it will get dirty....

LMFAO....you are awesome bud....Kudos..........

LOL! Right, it's a Bench Queen!

BTW bodysnatcher, congrats on the new machinist job, hope they treat you right. I'd love to be machining again for a living, I really miss it.

[ronncat]

Bill,

Congrats on the new job, and the new mill! Thanks for encouraging words. As far as kits go, now that you have a mill, you are in a great position to make kits to CNC this lathe. And with all your experience....

Again, let me reiterate. I started this thread to share with everyone what my thoughts were in designing and fabricating a conversion for my 8X12 lathe. I was hoping that any feedback from other members of the forum would steer this newbie machinist in the right direction. This is only a hobby for me, and I am enjoying every minute of it. If someone wanted to make it more than a hobby (for themselves) they are more than welcome to use and improve upon my ideas to create a kit for the 8X12 lathe. I will even help (in my free time) by suppyling drawings, dxf files, or whatever I have that I can dig up. Since I did this a piece at a time, these files are scattered all around on my computer.

In the meantime... I decided that for a CNC lathe, the compound slide would be mostly redundant, so I did away with it and replaced it with a 1" steel riser block. Hopefully this will act to stiffen the machine even further.





Now.... my attention is focused on building the controller box for the build. The computer is up and running Mach3 lathe. I activated the Dolphin CADCAM turning module and have played a bit with that...very cool. I am trying to get everything up and running by the end of the month so that I can start getting this machine DIRTY

[HoboCrow]

Ron,

You're moving really fast now ... I can see the count down starting

You beat me to the compound solid block - I'm headed that way, but not there yet. I have been thinking about it.

What I think would be cool ... would be to extend the solid compound block so it covers the entire top of the crossslide. Then we could have T slots milled into it - allowing the QCtool post to be setup at different locations on the crossslide like some of the photos I've seen of older American lathes ... I'm just pondering it ...

Maybe Bill Z will think on it also ...

Looking good as always!

Bill S

[chipslinger69]

Ron,

You're moving really fast now ... I can see the count down starting

You beat me to the compound solid block - I'm headed that way, but not there yet. I have been thinking about it.

What I think would be cool ... would be to extend the solid compound block so it covers the entire top of the crossslide. Then we could have T slots milled into it - allowing the QCtool post to be setup at different locations on the crossslide like some of the photos I've seen of older American lathes ... I'm just pondering it ...

Maybe Bill Z will think on it also ...

Looking good as always!

Bill S

The only problem I see with running a block the entire length of the cross slide would be that it would seriously limit the size of stock that you could turn. But other than that it's not a bad idea. Another idea would be to make a new cross slide just slightly thicker than the original to allow for T-slots. Those are just my observations from looking at my machine.

[blades]

..... If someone wanted to make it more than a hobby (for themselves) they are more than welcome to use and improve upon my ideas to create a kit for the 8X12 lathe.

Improve upon?? Tell you what Ron, I've got 20+ years of machining experience and 15+ years of tool design experience (somewhat overlapping), and almost nothing I'd change about your setup. It's solid and clean, period.

You must have been a closet machinist/designer all your life, just waiting for the opportunity to apply it.

[ronncat]

Gosh Blades...I don't know what to say But thank you for making my day.

Bill,
I originally intended to bring the cross slide block a few more inches to cover the vacated circular cutout in the original cross slide. However, it would have reduced by about 2" the max diameter size of stock I could turn. So I ended up milling the A36 steel to size so that it wouldn't interfere. Now I'll just cover the cutout area with a .080" sheet aluminum to keep it chip free.

[clivefx]

Fantastic work. I have the same lathe and have been on a seesaw between converting it or scratch building a granite plate THK rail lathe.

Your posts have got me thinking of conversion again.
But I know how long these things take. I could just but the preconverted one that these folks have started selling:
HMCNC

Beautiful work. I am really impressed by it, and I love the bead blasted look.
How long did this conversion take you, in terms of weekends? was it like, every weekend for six months?

[ronncat]

Clivefx,
I started doodling on my laptop on vacation in the middle of November... Milled and assembled the last piece to make the conversion functional before the end of the year..

By my calculations, about 6 weeks or so from start to finish, and that included designing everything.

So... I think if you were to have a goal to finish a piece or two each weekend, you could finish a conversion in about a month... if you were to use my design as a basis. Good luck

[ronncat]

Today, I milled the housings for the Z and X axis home switches.



I will be using Hall Effect sensors triggered by magnets that are affixed to the lathe base and the cross slide. Had a bunch of rare earth magnets laying around. They are very powerful.. too strong for my purpose here. However, a little bit of heat and the magnets become weaker.

Will be wiring up the LEDs, hall sensors and resistors. then the whole assembly will be embedded in epoxy in the the appropriate cutouts in the housing. There is an outstanding open source thread on these sensors in the woodworking forum.

Once these are completed and mounted, I only need to assemble the control box and I'm ready to roll. Out of town for a few weekends, so I probably won't get too much done until next month Oh well... guess that will give me time to read up on Mach3 turn and threading.

[ronncat]

Today I completed the installation of the X and Z home sensors. Now all that is left to do is complete the controller box and wire up everything. Unfortunately, I'm out of town the rest of the month and not much will get done.

Anyhow, here is how I did the ended up doing the home sensors. If I were to start this project again, I might consider integrating the X axis sensor into the apron extension, (might look a little cleaner) but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

The sensor mounts were milled out as in my previous post. The I soldered up the Hall effect sensors, resistors and LEDs as shown in the thread entitled "electronic home switches made easy".


Then the electronics were encapsulated in epoxy.


I drilled holes and mounted magnets to trigger the sensors. One in the cross slide for the X axis and in the frame for the Z axis.


The the sensors were mounted.


Sensors were tested and adjusted using a 3.7V Li battery. The LEDs light up when the Hall Effect sensor is switched on by the magnet.


Here is the final result. Eventually all of the sensor wiring and stepper motor wiring will emerge from the saddle in a single flex conduit that I salvaged from my X3 when I did that conversion.


Will be working on the electronics side now. No more freezing in the garage and getting aluminum chips in my socks. Hopefully my next post will show a working CNC Lathe

[RotarySMP]

Nicely well thought out design. Respect.