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my cnc conversion

SLC_FAB

Member
i guess i will break the ice on this thread, i had originally bought a new king Canada kc-20vs from a mom and pop shop that refurbished all types of manual machines. After a little Youtube viewing i seen there was/is a lot of people in the states that are converting the same style mill/drill under the grizzly g0704 name and i dug a little deeper.

Im not a electrical engineer but a lot of suppliers sell the drivers, break out boards and ports not configured to run wired and ready to go out of the box and this set me back a little. i dont have the expertise to wire it and not have my shop burn to the ground, so with a little internet searching and other forums i found a company in the U.S called Probotix. they have many different combinations of ready to run setups nicely produced in its own housing,i went with the 280 oz Nema 23 motors on the X and Y axis and 420 oz Nema 23 motor on the Z axis while keeping it on the cheap by using stock lead screws on all axis and making my own mounting brackets.

the majority of people doing the conversion are using a program called Mach3 as the cnc controller, that coupled with a cad cam i was off to make a few projects. so i thought, finding the correct motor speeds and ramping was difficult without losing steps and having a descent rapid/feed movement. there is a lot of factors when using the stock lead screws as far as backlash and gibbs and deflection.

As this is my first post on this forum and in the cnc conversion thread i will keep it short, im now upgrading my mill to have ballscrews on all axis. i have made some projects with the old lead screws but the finish product is sub par, it was just enough to get me hooked on the whole second phase conversion process.
 

Alexander

Ultra Member
Administrator
How much did it cost to convert your king mill? You just needed to mount the servos right? If been thinking about doing this on a mill for a while now.
 

SLC_FAB

Member
Alexander, the mounts I made were very cheap to build. I used 1/4-20 cap screws to mount the motors onto coupling nuts which also were bolted to 1/2" aluminum "plate". The aluminum, nuts and screws ran about $40 if I remember correctly and the love-joy couplings were dirt cheap at $5 each but from the store I got them from, there is a minimum charge and I had to order 4 couplings.

I am hoping to get my ball screws mounted on the mill now, if I can find time, then I will be able to machine some better looking mounts. For what a guy needs and a little imagination it's inexpensive to make the motor mounts to get you out of the gate.
 
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