[shepdog]

Can anyone please direct me to or share some dimensioned plans/drawings for a direct drive set up for a RF-31 or similar mill/drill?
thanks!

[D.L]

A Star or Rexroth 1622 or 1623 fits into the the space of the rack for the Z, the casing of the head needs the nuts preloaded to take away any slack on the 115 diameter column.
A 20mm ballscrew fits perfectly inside the column, but breaching the side with a slot for the ballnut mount weakens the column a fair bit an engineer told me.
So an external ballscrew seems the go?
I decided to make a linear rail column and not pursue the round column, yet to be, you can do a round column and i have not seen it done, at least not very publicly.

[Bubba]

shepdog,
I have a collection of information from when I converted my RF31. It is mainly "sketches" but if dimensioned (imperial dim) to fit MY 31. One thing I found was apparently no two machines have bolt holes in exactly the same place! If you want them, your more than welcome to them. As for the quill, I loosened up the fine downfeed housing and tapped the worm shaft closer to the quill to take up a lot of that backlash, I also removed the chrome bezel from the fine downfeed wheel and replaced it with a plate to mount my servo motor. Behind the plate, made a proper fitting sleeve to press on the outer race of the worm shaft bearing to properly locate it and remove that bit of slop causing backlash also. (made from a piece of pipe).
PM me your email and I will forward the zip file to you.

[Wallerawang]

Hi Shepdog

Have a look at this build log - it's the one used as inspiration when I did my RF31 - the secret to success with these mills is to use the quill for your Z axis - mine works great.

BUILD LOG: Warco Major CNC build log

Steve

[shepdog]

Thank you both! Bubba, PM sent...

[CNC-Joe]

Bubba//Art,

- I am interested in seeing your conversion. Did you post a build log on it ?

Thanks,

Joe

[Bubba]

Joe,
No, I didn't do a build log on my machine, as I did it before I joined the zone! The only thing that remains is what is left on my ancient web site (Its still up, but I don't have that ISP anymore!) at:
My CNC Homepage
And actually, those pictures are from a previous ISP that I had that went belly up and this is what I salvaged.

If I can help, ask away, but lets not hijack this thread.

[CNC-Joe]

ShepDog,

- Jeff Davis ( who is a moderator here on the 'zone ) has a plan set for a round mill CNC conversion:
Learning Home CNC

Joe

[109jb]

I did a round column Harbor freight mill before I got my G0704. You can see the build at the following link. This one is a bit smaller than the RF-31 but the construction is very similar, as are all of the round columns.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/bencht...ill_build.html