[ttm]

I might be able to get a pretty good price on a pretty clean 1 hp BP, it is not variable speed but for all intents of converting this over to a cnc table for the parts I have in mind, I think I can live with manually changing belt for different speeds

my question would be

would it be fairly reasonable to turn the BP knee mill into a cnc mill, and can someone point me a direction to look into different controller setups for it?

I currently have a 2hp Variable speed Alliant, 1 1/2 tmv,

thank you

[mactec54]

ttm

You can use a VFD to drive your spindle motor, you just pick a pulley speed you want to use most of the time, then you can control the speed with the VFD

The Z axes is the worst part to do, but many have done them, as for a control Mach3 does a good job

[ttm]

ttm

You can use a VFD to drive your spindle motor, you just pick a pulley speed you want to use most of the time, then you can control the speed with the VFD

The Z axes is the worst part to do, but many have done them, as for a control Mach3 does a good job

I didn't even think about a VFD for that purpose, good suggestion.

I haven;t had much time to look for around to see if there are any kits to do this, will be looking around some more tonight and tomorrow though, I did see this as one to look into http://www.flashcutcnc.com/CNC-Controls.php

I am slightly familiar with mach as I have a CNC plasma table


thanks!

[awerby]

If you can get it for a song, pick it up. Even if you don't end up converting it to CNC, it can come in useful as a manual mill for doing a CNC conversion process or building a CNC machine from scratch. It's difficult to use, though, when you've torn it apart, and to convert it you need to do that, replacing the original screws with ball screws, and figuring out a way to drive the quill.

It's actually a lot easier to retrofit a machine that was built for CNC in the first place, so you might look for one of those - Bridgeport made a "Boss" machine for CNC use, and a lot of them are available now with their original obsolete controls - put new ones on and you can have a pretty good CNC machine for cheap, if the base machine's in good condition.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[ttm]

If you can get it for a song, pick it up. Even if you don't end up converting it to CNC, it can come in useful as a manual mill for doing a CNC conversion process or building a CNC machine from scratch. It's difficult to use, though, when you've torn it apart, and to convert it you need to do that, replacing the original screws with ball screws, and figuring out a way to drive the quill.

I do have a knee mill, BP Close, a 2 HP Alliant 1 1/2tmv With a 2 axis DRO and x axis power feed on it so far,

It's actually a lot easier to retrofit a machine that was built for CNC in the first place, so you might look for one of those - Bridgeport made a "Boss" machine for CNC use, and a lot of them are available now with their original obsolete controls - put new ones on and you can have a pretty good CNC machine for cheap, if the base machine's in good condition.

Andrew Werby
ComputerSculpture.com ? Home Page for Discount Hardware & Software

thanks Andrew, I'll keep my eye out for one of the ones you mention, have any other suggestions for a smaller budget CNC mill?

Tom