Adventures in Converting my Precision Mathews Milling Machine to CNC

[men8ifr]

Daz where did you get your mill from?

[dazp1976]

Daz where did you get your mill from?

Amadeal
https://www.amadeal.co.uk/acatalog/A...M.html#SID=373
Went for this as the sizes were what I needed, reasonable spindle speeds and R8 option.
Feels a heafty solid machine, just a pity about Y travel, fine if you don't mind running with the way covers off.
(Not recommended for a flood coolant though).

Couldn't afford the 30LV otherwise I'd have gone with that and reckon it's the best option.
Spindle rpm can be worked on at a later date.
https://www.amadeal.co.uk/acatalog/A...8.html#SID=380

Would be an extra £570 to pick mine up and swap it for a 30.
I'll be sticking with the 25 and modding my Y travel.
First using the roller blind idea on the Z axis way which takes away the stock cover and will free up almost an extra 25mm of room like in the vid below.
Then re position the table and see if the Y cover causes any problems. If it does then I'll just get some thinner material.


Fingers crossed this will be all I need to do to get 180mm travel without chips and oil/water everywhere
By then I'll hopefully have my ballscrews turn up so I can crack on with those.

Looks to me like all these size machines have the same sizing design to keep them compact. Hence why you often see spacers on the G0704 to extend Y.

These newer type machines are being build with top bolting columns now for more rigidity so extension options are limited.

[arizonavideo]

The roller ideal is a good one with the PM-25. Every mill has it quirks and for the PM-25 its the Y axes does not go all the way toward the column so the center of the spindle is not in the center of the table so usable travel is different than what you can cut if the work is centered on the table.

The Y mount should let the Y slide travel over it in the forward direction, at least my CNC kit allows for that, so if you cut the mill you can get more forward travel easily but that is not too much help cutting larger, wide stock on the PM-25.

A simple mod is the Z way guard mod like you posted and a head spacer. I would not do over a 1" spacer, in fact I would do a 3/4" and cut the mill base 1" max.

I do like the roller idea a lot and plan on doing the same to a few of my mills.

[hackish]

I was wondering if anyone put significant consideration into the Z axis mount for the ball nut. Looking at photos, some of them appear to be pretty flimsy and I'm concerned about deflecting the Z axis up or down during a heavy cut.

[dazp1976]

I was wondering if anyone put significant consideration into the Z axis mount for the ball nut. Looking at photos, some of them appear to be pretty flimsy and I'm concerned about deflecting the Z axis up or down during a heavy cut.

Thought that myself. Nowhere near looking at mine yet. Hoping that I can use 2 blocks, each one similar to the procut cnc one. I'm limited to 1" thick stock at present.
One of them bolted to the headstock as normal and the other as a slave covering the sleeve nut. Then both of these bolted together.
Maybe the slave one as a clamp style on the sleeve.

It's a thought in progress.

[arizonavideo]

My Z nut holder has always been fairly strong at 1.5" thick.

[dazp1976]

My Z nut holder has always been fairly strong at 1.5" thick.

Now that's the kind of size I'm talking about

[hackish]

If I could have bought the nut holders and end plates/bearings off ArizonaVideo, I would have done it in a second. Such is the problem with not having any standard sized motors. I guess his Z axis is bigger than it appears in photos.