[jrdeyoung]

this sight is a little overwhelming at first. so much info to sift through. ok, here is the reason i dont post......i know nothing! i do know i have 14" logan i am hell bent on retrofiting. i also know its not going to happen anytime soon. so, i am just trying to soak up as much general info as i can for now. besides every question i ask and get answered just leads to two more things i never even thought of before and results in more questions. a vicious cycle no doubt.

i do see alot of retrofited mill/drills and homade routers here, but not too much going on with lathes, unless they are micros or minis. i would love to brain-pick someone with experience in converting larger American lathes. as far as the mechanical part of a projectlike this, it doesnt seem too rough, but the electronics half leaves me lost in the sauce.

[723]

Hi,
This is a great site. I have been lurking around for some
time now, and decided to register. I run a small job
shop in southern kalifornia. I am facinated with building
cnc machines. Never relized how much work goes into
building these cnc's.

[jbhill]

I just found this site today and along with practicalmachinist I don't think there's any question I have that couldn't be answered! I've been doing engineering work at a company for the last 3 years and before that spent some time in a medium size CNC shop as well as 7 years as a patternmaker (patternmaking the old fashioned way mostly). Great site.

Jason

[maurizio]

ok!!!!! here is my post
help
in the past few months i have built some sort of a universal machine that can cut dove tails ,mortise and tenons ,and can be used as a copy mill
The all system runs on linear bearings (not shaft)
i am now tinking to make it cnc controlled. the only poblem is that i know absolutely nothing about this kind of stuf.looking on the net i saw people using printer motors to make small engraving machines
my question is this:i can see the way i could use my old large format dot matrix printer for the x axis but how would i control the y axis????
for experiment sake i would built a much smaller machine becouse the present one is too big to be moved by a printer motor

[Louis Roy]

Hello, New guy here. I am a cnc machinist, vmcs mostly. I do some programing, trouble shoot new programs, ect. I am always looking for useful knowledge, and hope I find some here, looks promising

[Tulak]

I like to say hi to all of you.
I am cnc programmer.Working for mold shop using cimatron.
I started a new job and progamming Heidenhain 430 control.
Post do not work so well and this control is a new for me.
I will need some helpwith the posts.
thanks

[DAB_Design]

Howdy all.

I'm just joined up recently. I seem to be getting my feet wet in a few areas.....not excluding making myself look a bit silly (proof at http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...&threadid=4776 )

[Rekd]

LoL, DAB! :cheers:

[Patrick2by4]

Hello, my name is Patrick and I'm a carpenter working in NYC. I've been a lurker for about 3 months and started posting about 2 months ago.

This is a really great site. I first saw a cnc machine (hobbyist version) about 3 years at a woodworkers show in NJ. It was the shopbot. In January of this year, I saw the shopbot again at the same trade show and this time the machine was cutting out a sign. It was the coolest thing. He had on display several items that the machine cut out and I wanted to buy my own machine. Well the $5000 price tag sort of cooled that desire. Well, over the next few weeks, I started thinking about CNC machines and then finally I started checking out the internet. I found cranky's site and started reading up on hobbiest machines. About 2 weeks later, I found this site and that was it. I learned a ton of stuff about the different disciplines involved in building and using a CNC router.

At this point, I'm building my own machine and I hope to be finished with it in about two months. I want to thank all of you for your help and insight on this wonderful hobby.

you can check my progress here

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...&threadid=4752

[atemylunch]

Greetings, I'm Max.

I've been lurking around for a few days.

You guys are quite a creative bunch.

I've been wanting to build my own router for some time now.
You guys are not making it any easier. To many choices

For some background on myself,
I own a small business that produces decorative products(vases, candleholders, furniture & etc.)
I have a few machine tools, two of which I retrofited with CNC(Lathe, mill). They both have AHHA drives, drivin by flashcut. My best tool is a 97 Haas hl-2. (I do need programing advice from you Haas guys.)
To add to the fun, all of these tools are in my garage. Yes, I do live in a homeowner's association.
Nobody has complained, so far.

That's it for now.

Talk Soon,
Max

[c-c-cncboy]

machine ed - re linear bearings of UHMWPE and Delrin(r)
Like all good engineering plastics, these 2 enjoy EMBEDABILITY, so they can swallow harsh particles that would otherwise harm the guide rod/bar. However they have a low elastic modulus (that's French for they deflect under load) and their linear coefficient of thermal expansion is rather high -maybe 6 to 10 times that of metals. If you factor in those characteristics, you can do well with them. I'd suggest UHMWPE is the silent winner here, as you can purchase it skived (peeled) in ultra-precise thin tape, to use as a scarf-joint gapped bushing liner, or a thin adherent strip on a way. But don;t get carried away with high rotation speed bushings, where the low thermal conductivity will refuse heat dissipation. Low speed, high pressure is their area of dominance. UHMWPE (how high is high when it comes to molecular weight of Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene? Maybe a couple million and up...) has abrasion resistance to die for, plus particle embedability, plus low surface energy that allows beautifully regular, thin, skived tape. Delrin has a high modulus of elasticity and can be precision machined like brass (even to responding to the same tooling angles for rake and clearance). Keep them thin for controlled deformation and higher conduction, confine them to low bearing velocities, remember they ain't metals, they are cute partners to metals - enjoy. Regards, Terrence

[Stratoscat]

Hello all!!!
Just wanted to chime in and say that I really enjoy this forum and have learned alot by "lurking" in the background!! This is only my second post and I know I have alot to learn...If you see my first post, you will see that I have already "learned" how to spell "learned"!!!
Have A Great Day!! :cheers:
rt..

[Ito-Brazil]

:cheers: Hello there. I am from Brazil and i am about to start to build my first CNC. I am just an inventor adicted an found this group. Amazing! I never though to have my own CNC. I think i will have success. Every help is welcome.

Thanks and sorry about my english.

[dmoore764]

Hello CNC goers,
I'm pretty new I guess, I think I'm about ready to start buying stuff for my first CNC, so maybe I'll get a project log up 'n goin' sometime soon. I do have questions though, but I'll start them in another thread
----------------
Personal quote goes here

[SeaNICK]

Hi, I haven't posted yet because I am not really even into CNC yet. I have been trying to build a CNC mill for various projects I feel that could benefit from the use of one, but the problem I am encountering at the moment is I am trying to lower the quill of a drill press for the Z axis, but I am not sure how to do it. there is only a short threaded bar exposed on one side and the 3 arms on the other. was going to hook up a gear to the threaded section but not sure how to hold it in place. the threaded bar also has a slit in it that a flat pin could fit through, or something...

but apparently I wasn't one of the lurkers you were counting because I didn't even have an account here yet. which is fitting because I dont have a CNC mill yet. hopefully soon I will have some time to spend on it though.

NICK

[Mi_WireGuy]

Hey everyone, I just found this forum so I thought pop in and say HI.
I am Tim from Centerline, MI. I am a WIRE EDM guy, and have background in other methods of CNC machining. So, just wanted to intro myself and check out the board, it looks like a pretty active place which is kewl...

:cheers:
TC

[cncadmin]

Welcome to the site!

[jrc347]

Hello all,
my name is jeff and i am a machine aholic just like everyone else on the site, ive been lurking around for a while now and really enjoy the site. I work at a Ford dealer in
Orlando Fl fixing blue ovals all day, and usually spend most of my off time thinking of
something to machine. i havent really posted too much because every question ive had is usually answered very thoroughly by others. I have a maxnc 10 and a minitech
mini mil2. i use bobcad v19 and mach 1 primarily to program. thanks again for the great site.

[Brian V.]

Well I guess I had better get my first post done too. I am new to this all and have been lurking for about a week now trying to learn both the CNC thingy and the site's layout. Boy what a wealth of information to take in.

I live in Enterprise, Alabama and am an aircraft mechanic here at Fort Rucker, the home of Army Aviation. I am retired from the US Army where I learned to work on helicopters. I am a R/C hobbiest and fly both airplanes and helicopters.

I am also trying to learn CAD. I have downloaded the freely availible TurboCAD Learning Edition (4.something) but I fear that I will not be able to learn on it since the tutorial didn't come with the download version. Guess I will have to break down and try to buy a copy.

I want to get invovled by building my first CNC machine to cut out parts for building airplanes using balsa and ply up to 1/4 inch. I also want to build a CNC foam cutter to do wing panels with.

I have been dreaming of flying a B-25 for a long time and have the plans for the 101 inch wingspan Nick Zirolli B-25. I think it would be just grand if I learned to scan in the plan parts, trace in CAD, then cut them all out on a CNC router machine. Yea, I know, I could just buy then for a few hundred dollars but I think if I did it this route I would have something else besides an airplane to show for my work and money.

[mark c]

Hi
My name is Mark. I work as a CNC programmer using MasterCam and found this site recently while taking an online course on parametric programming. I recognise a few people from the MasterCam forum.
The timing is great, I just bought a mini-mill cnc on E-Bay (haven't got it yet) and see a lot of useful information here. Will probably buy a lathe and convert it to CNC in a while. Just trying to figure out what I need, and maybe make a little money, too!

Mark