Small milling machine conversion to CNC

[amirlach]

https://cnc4pc.com/ Is where i got allot of my conversion parts. Breakout Board, power source, servos, encoders, cables and line drivers. They sell dedicated Mach3 and 4 computers as well as control boxes if your not ready to try building your own.

I have not had any issues with Mach3. You can DL a trial version to play with before you buy. It has some Wizards for cutting common things like gears and hole patterns.

I will check out the LinuxCNC too. There are many ways to do CNC like pfredX1 says. I am always looking for better ways of doing.

Do some research and find out what fits for you. I live in a small oil town that has a few machine shops i can goto to ask stupid questions. There is also a small local network of fellow hobby CNC guys who helped avoid some of the pitfalls.

My system keeps evolving as i add better components and more functions to it. Like a Touch Probe. Next is a 4th axis. It's probably just as satisfying building and trouble shooting the system as it is watching chips fly. When your first drive moves under computer control... Well you will see.

I tried the Gecko controllers, which i found to be hard to tune. I have since gone to a PID controller that is self tuned. Alot more money, but less headaches.

The latest in hobby CNC is the AC Servos. These were reserved for the industrial CNCs untill fairly recently. https://cnc4pc.com/dmm-dyn4-servo-ki...-34-frame.html

The reason i went with servos instead of steppers, is steppers can lose steps and have no feedback loop that detects the error. Servo's have encoders that track rotation and can apply more power when they detect higher loads.

I also added magnetic linear encoders as a calibration aid. They have a 2 micron resolution. These are not tied into the system directly, just used as an instant visual reference when setting offsets and calibrating drives.

Another thing to consider is your CAD and CAM software. This lets you create, import and edit files. I use Solid Works and Mesh Cam. Solid Works is likely the most expensive part of the whole system. I use it for other things so i can kinda justify the rather substantial cost. They recently added a CAM function to Solid Works. Though i find it clumsy.