[Runner4404spd]

the higher voltage supplies will increase the speed of the stepper motors. realistically i you need to cover the amps the motors will take at about 4-25 times the rated voltage. this keeps the steppers saturated with current through the chopping drives.

[RLC]

Converting this has been harder than I had anticipated. It’s not so much the work involved but the fact that I just haven’t had the time and didn’t realize just how much I use the mill in its current configuration. I will be closing the week between Christmas and New Years and plan on locking myself on the shop and knocking this out. I’m finishing up on the controller and have a few more questions to ask. I know my design of having everything housed in one cabinet is not the best idea but it sure makes for a nice place to hide all the wiring and cabling. I plan on mounting my power supply and the drivers/heat sinks on isolators inside the housing that already has my PC. I have read that the grounds should not be run to the same point as far as PC, Driver PS and Drivers. Is there a problem that the PC is mounted to the enclosure and the Drivers and Power Supply for the motors are insulated from the enclosure? Or do I need to run a ground strap from the enclosure to each of the isolated items? I have read several post on here were Its bad to run PC and Controller grounds to the same point, but then again I have read that you can run all the PC grounds and All the Controller grounds to different grounding lugs on the same chassis and you are ok as far as the PC being isolated from the controller.

[Runner4404spd]

Converting these mills is not a trivial process, there are short cuts you can take but that usually leads to catastrophic failure later down the road.

[RLC]

Here is a pic of my drivers (G202's) mounted on the heatsink with three PC power supply fans to keep it all cool, currently the fans draw air thru the extrusion and exhaust out, this allows the fan guards on the out side or does it matter which way the air flows? My motors draw 5.5amps, and Gecko says to heatsink at 6amps..this might have been a little over kill but I had all fans sitting around.
http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/showp...0/ppuser/16333

[RLC]

Well it looks like my conversion is going to be 2007 model...lol. I have uploaded a few more photos to my gallery.
http://www.cnczone.com/gallery/showg.../16333/cat/500
Still have lots to do, I plan on doing the wiring in the a.m. I'll will not wire any of the switches, joy stick, or any bells and whistles untill I have tested the basic wiring. Before I get slammed for not having any SAFTEY switches they will be added after it gets a passing grade (besides the motors are not installed on the mill). I think this should shorten any trouble shooting I may have to do. I do have a question about motor wire size. My motor leads will be about 10 foot each, the pig tails that came on the motors seem small to me but they have a ton of info on them, the 2 things I do understand is the pig tails are 20awg wire rated at 300v. Would 20awg be heavy enough to run the 10 feet needed?

[webgeek]

(1) I-Pac keyboard emulator > Ultimarc

Hah! Another arcade machine fan? I prefer Groovy Game Gear's USB controllers myself but PS2 probably makes more sense for CNC.

[RLC]

Well I dont play arcade games but I do like the fact that some of there stuff can cross over into the DYI CNC....makes things alot easier

[RLC]

Getting the mill mounted in the stand/tank and plumbed for coolant, was wondering what coolants work best, I mainly do Aluminum, but also do mild steel and stainless every once in a while. Hers is something off subject but might be useful to some of you, Free calculator in progress

[RLC]

kochevnik says "One thing I notice, no matter how fast your mill is, you always want something faster" got me thinking about trying to get more rpm out of my mill. Currently the fastest is 3000rpm. By replacing the motor with one that turns 3450 you could double your rpm’s fairly easy. When I say easy I know that there is more to be done, I'm sure the spindle would need better bearings installed so that it could handle the 100% increase and some work would be needed on the belt drive system and all, but just was wondering why I have never seen this mod before. What are your thoughts on this?

[RLC]

I haven’t had much time to keep up with the “Zone”, but I did want to say that while I was changing over to the new stand I decided to do some tests as far as finish quality. All tests were a 3/8 EM at a depth 0.030” in Aluminum. The 1st was with the mill was bolted to the original stand and finish was fair. The 2nd was with the mill bolted to the new stand, which has a substantial increase in weight over the original, (pushing 300lbs) What a difference the extra weight made, very smooth cut. The 3rd one was with the new stand and flood coolant. I did all 3 cuts by hand and the last one with the coolant, there was a BIG difference, almost a mirror like finish, you could still see the tooling marks but it was much shinier than the other 2. As far the cut went, it felt more like I was taking only a few thousandths. The stand worked very well for containing the chips and coolant splash. I’m still running it with the old controller and motors to machine the new brackets and motor mounts. Getting very close to bolting all the “NEW” on and chasing down any problems it might have. Any one considering a new stand and coolant should do it. These hobby class mills need all the help they can get, adding the stand removed a lot of vibration compared to the old stand and the coolant was the icing on the cake.