New CNC MIll Conversion

[joerom]

Bob,
All you have to do is bolt together some angle iron for the frame, and put in cross pieces for the mill to bolt to..Then the actual cabinet can be made out of anything, and if you caulk the seams and paint it with Hammertone paint, you will have a waterproof setup that will work as well as mine..My cabinet is about 5 feet long and I think 28 in. deep..The height can be what you need it to be...It can easily be made out of plywood...I used Plexiglass for the doors...Just copy what I did only use what materials you have...…..

 

[michael-au]

Nice work cabinet looks great

 

[joerom]

Thanks to all for the likes, I do appreciate it...I enjoy doing things like this as much as building an engine...

 

[joerom]

I just decided on another project I would like to get and have been thinking of for quite some time, and this may go to help finance it..If you have an interest PM me...…..

 

[Jackham]

Bob,
The cabinet you see that I made is 1/16 sheet steel..It was done with minimal joints and is tack welded every few inches..With the bends that were made it is strong enough by itself to hold the mill, but it sits on an angle iron frame that has pieces going across to bolt the mill to..The bolts go through the cabinet into the frame, and it sits on the bolts to raise it up from the bottom to allow cleaning any chips that get below the mill and allow coolant to run by..It was completely caulked and then painted..It also has a drain to recirculate the coolant when I add that...The doors have a deflector on the bottom to cause any splashes of coolant to stay in the cabinet...It is totally sealed and can use full coolant, along with containing the chips.....I hope this helps..……….

Hi Joe,

what an awesome job, well done. Did you mill some sample parts? I would like to know if the machine transfers vibrations to the sheet metal cabinet. Did you add some rubber dampers between the machine and the cabinet?

Can the stepper motors be used with coolant or do they have to be sealed?

 

[joerom]

Hello,
I have not milled any parts with it..It is actually going to a friend the way it is right now..I do not see any vibrations being transferred, because it has either angle iron or flat steel welded to it on all edges and such, and sits on an angle iron frame..The mill is bolted right through the cabinet into the frame, and actually sits on bolts to keep it off the cabinet for cleaning..It should not be any different than any similar CNC machine..The steppers will have a simple cover on them to keep out the coolant and chips...
I had intentions of making many things with it, but my ambition is declining as my age is rising..I have many castings and projects going now, and I am not really working on any of that, let alone adding CNC to my list of things that will never be done...………………...

 

[Jackham]

Hello,
I have not milled any parts with it..It is actually going to a friend the way it is right now..I do not see any vibrations being transferred, because it has either angle iron or flat steel welded to it on all edges and such, and sits on an angle iron frame..The mill is bolted right through the cabinet into the frame, and actually sits on bolts to keep it off the cabinet for cleaning..It should not be any different than any similar CNC machine..The steppers will have a simple cover on them to keep out the coolant and chips...
I had intentions of making many things with it, but my ambition is declining as my age is rising..I have many castings and projects going now, and I am not really working on any of that, let alone adding CNC to my list of things that will never be done...………………...

Hello Joe,

Thank you for the info. It is never too late to learn new things, however we have to set our priorities. Your friend is going to get a real awesome CNC milling machine .

 

[joerom]

This did go to a friend of mine, and as soon as it was gone, I had regrets..I was able to get it back, and I want to try some 4 axis machining, and then go on to 5 axis just for fun..First I want to do some additional things to it, and then try actually making something on it..My thoughts are to give the Little Demon a shot..I have a couple of other projects in the works, so I will try to fit it all in......

 

[joerom]

I finally added the the 4th and fifth axis trunnion to my machine. It was already set up for it, I just needed to purchase it and it was expensive. I do not really know how to program all this but I wanted to build a five axis machine and I did. I have Desk Proto multi axis and it has a sample program on it for five axis machining a dice and I downloaded it and itis a general thing at best and still needs a lot of programming to get it to do something. I did manage to run the program and det all 5 axis to do their thing but do not have specifics in it yet to actually machine the die. That is way beyond what I am presently capable of. I did make my 5 axis machine and it is capable of doing 5 axis work, so I am at least happy with that. I still have not machined anything with this mill since I built it and it just sits covered up in my basement which is kind of a shame, but my health has been declining the past few years and since I broke my hip it has gotten even worse so at this point it may never get used because I just do not spend any real time in the basement let alone learning how to program this thing, but I did what I set out to do

...........

 

[joerom]

As this is what I had in mind when I was making this CNC conversion, I had to try to see if this setup would do the Demon V8 block. Once again, I do not know how to program this thing to actually do something like the V8, so I took a piece of wood with the basic dimension of the block and tried to machine the 45 degree angle where the heads would mount. I had not thought of anything except would this do that angle on each side. I manually made all moves using my keyboard and the dro and this is what I got. I am guessing that if you actually know what you are doing, this would do it all. There is just enough room to make the cuts the way it is, but if you needed more room for a bigger project you could turn the trunnion 90 degrees and use it that way. There is also a lot of room in the Z. I will put it away again now because I will never learn how to program this thing at my age, but mostly I don't have it anymore because of my health. At least this proves to "me" that I did what I set out to do and that makes me happy enough.........................................

 

[ajoeiam]

As this is what I had in mind when I was making this CNC conversion, I had to try to see if this setup would do the Demon V8 block. Once again, I do not know how to program this thing to actually do something like the V8, so I took a piece of wood with the basic dimension of the block and tried to machine the 45 degree angle where the heads would mount. I had not thought of anything except would this do that angle on each side. I manually made all moves using my keyboard and the dro and this is what I got. I am guessing that if you actually know what you are doing, this would do it all. There is just enough room to make the cuts the way it is, but if you needed more room for a bigger project you could turn the trunnion 90 degrees and use it that way. There is also a lot of room in the Z. I will put it away again now because I will never learn how to program this thing at my age, but mostly I don't have it anymore because of my health. At least this proves to "me" that I did what I set out to do and that makes me happy enough.........................................
snip (pics)

Looks good mate!!!
Any chance you would be able to provide details of the build (all of it)?
(I'd bet I'm not the only one who would be interested in reading that!!)

TIA

 

[joerom]

I am not sure what exactly you mean by details of the build, but if you start at the beginning of this post I show what I did to get to this stage...........
Joe

 

[CFLBob]

Sorry to hear about the broken hip and other health problems. Hopefully, you'll feel well enough to get back to the machining. My wife has had both of her hips replaced and is getting close to the "worn out" point on one. OTOH, she was 49 when she had the first one done, so she has almost gotten 20 years out of it.

I decided my G0704 conversion was done at four axes. I can move the fourth to achieve either your fourth or fifth axis position (which I think are conventionally called A and B axes); it's not permanently assembled in place. The problem I find is that CAM programs skyrocket in cost when you go down that road. There are some fascinating videos of five axis CNC operations on YouTube; I have no idea how they derive the tool paths.

 

[joerom]

I have just been having too many problems and have been in the hospital too much. Although I have tried to get back to machining which I really loved, I do not have it in me anymore. I start something and quickly lose interest, and look at everything as work at this point..........
Have you looked at Desk Proto. They have 5 axis machining and it is very cheap. You can also do a free download. I downloaded their 5 axis sample and got the machine in all 5 directions , but you still need to program in the coordinates to make it work, and that is all explained in the tutorial, and that is where I lose interest........

 

[CFLBob]

Have you looked at Desk Proto. They have 5 axis machining and it is very cheap.

I bought Desk Proto 5 years ago and downloaded the free edition of version 7 a couple of months ago. I didn't see much worthwhile about it, but I freely admit that doesn't mean much. I don't have any 5-axis designs to play with.

 

[joerom]

Desk Proto has some useful info if you get into it. A while back I wanted to try 4 axis machining with rotary and I used a tutorial right in their with all they have to offer and I made the statue below without any previous knowledge. What you see is exactly the way it came off the machine, and I always thought it was pretty neat, being I knew nothing. That then gave me some knowledge on rotary machining and was able to do some other things.
Then I thought I would like to try 5 axis machining, and that is when I made this conversion to my machine a few years back. One thing led to another and my health started to fail, and the machine then sat unused for all this time. My conversion is basically new because I never made anything. I was looking at the machine and thought you better do something now if you are going to. Desk Proto has a 5 axis example which I know now would work on my machine, So I decided to order the trunnion to try 5 axis machining just to see if I could also do that. I air machined their dice with 5 axis. The problem now is I just get tired of it very quickly and walk away from it, but Desk Proto would at least take the mystery out of 5 axis machining...................