Converting a Mill/Drill to CNC

[NeoMoses]

One of our members PMed me some questions about my mill/drill CNC conversion and I thought they would be best answered in a public forum.

He's referring to the mill/drill in this post.

Original Question
Hey I noticed the item you had for sale I would like to build one do you have a list of the parts and or procedures for doing so. I'm new to this please help me. Judging by the pictures you look extremely knowledgable, and I want to learn how to build this. What software would I use? Thanks for the help in advance.

My original reply:
NeoMoses wrote on 02-03-2004 02:33 AM:
Hi NAKD,
I'll help you as much as I can, but I would highly recommend that you post this in the forums to get others opinions on it, too.

Basically, I started with the manual Mill/Drill, bought servo motors from Dan Mauch (www.seanet.com/~dmauch) Gecko 320s from www.geckodrive.com, and a power supply off of ebay.

The brackets were all made from aluminum bought from www.onlinemetals.com The timing pulleys, timing belts, and other accessories were purchased from www.mcmaster.com

Finally, to remove backlash on the x and y axes, I used moglice from www.moglice.com

Hope this helps. Again, I would recommend taking this to the forums, as many others are more intelligent than me, and can help you make this project happen for a little less money than I spent. Hope it helps!

A second set of questions

1. which forum and where(don't want to irritate anyone?
2. The last picture you had, has disks and alot of extra stuff, where did you get that stuff, how much was it, and could you put a list together for me thanks?
3.What goes into the control box, do you have detailed diagrams instructions for building this?
Thanks in advance.

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[NeoMoses]

Ok, starting with the specific questions:

1. This one!
2. Disks: I collected and tried lots of software, but here's what I ended up using for most of my stuff. TurboCNC was used to control the machine, and DeskCNC was my CAM program used to make GCode. If you look in the software section, you'll likely find that software has changed in the past year, and you'll probably find stuff you like better.

3. In the 'control box' as you called it (or magic black box as I called it) were the Gecko Drives. They were interfaced to a parallel port breakout card, which is basically just a screw connector terminal that allows easy access to the different pins on a parallel port. This, too, was bought from Dan Mauch, but is not necessary.

I don't have detailed diagrams of anything except the Z-axis drive assembly that I designed/built. The rest was a pretty simple 'cut to fit' assembly.

Hope it helps, and keep asking questions until you know exactly what you want to build.

[HomeCNC]

It sounds like you and I did many things alike on our conversions. How long did it take you? I seem to remember my conversion took about 8 months. (money problems)

[NeoMoses]

Jeff, your website is what finally prompted me to take the plunge! It's no wonder mine resembled yours. Let's see, I bought the machine in November 2002... Bought my Geckos G320s and Servo Motors in December '02... Then I realized how little I actually knew about what I was getting ready to do (~$2500 spent already, though!)

Designed X and Y axis drives mid-december, bought parts from online metals and mcmaster for them. Took a couple weeks off for Christmas. After Christmas, I designed the Z axis drive, which took about 3 weeks to get completed. I had to get a large hole bored to house a bearing.

Then came tackling the software and learning what the heck GCode was. I think the machine was actually running under computer control by mid to late february, which would mean about 4 months from concept to implementation. Man, was it a learning experience, somewhat akin to jumping out of an airplane, then checking to see if I actually had a parachute!