# X1 Mill mod



## Griffin (Feb 8, 2014)

An X1 mill mod

I dont know if any bodys interested but Ive been trying to make my X1 mill a little bit more user friendly, I got so tired winding the Z drive up and down. In fact I spent more time winding up & down than actually doing the jobs on the steam engine, and my shoulder at my age will attest to that.

I wanted to fit a stepper motor at the top of the column, but theres a problem, without some means of disengaging the stepper from the handle the thing wont work, the handle is not strong enough to turn the stepper and the head, and steppers being turned create there own resistance, so digging around the bits boxes I found an electronic clutch I got years ago, and from that point I had a plan, I have been reading for years now about the wonders of arduino and the things it can do but Im not a programmer and I really had no interest in learning to code, now I had no choice, fortunately the internet is full of programs and forums on the arduino and the things it can do, there started a steep learning curve and although my program is not working properly it does get me bye, just.

It was obvious at the beginning there was a need for push switches to control the arduino, power supplies for the clutch & stepper, and boxes to go some where to house the switches and arduino, (not got the power supplies boxed yet), and a program to run in the arduino, the main problem with the programming is actually knowing what you want it to do, you might think you know, but I didnt, its not that easy, in my case I just wanted to get the stepper to move the Z drive up and down, now, when it reaches the top theres a micro switch to stop the motor, but how to tell it to stop upward motion but down is ok, for up I press the button once and it travels to the top, but down I must press & hold, and all this is done in the program, for some one who never programmed anything before this was a huge task, and its still not finished, I have in mind one day to fit a speed control for the stepper and then theres the X table, but that will be for another day


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