Hello! This is my first post on this forum.
I have been thinking of retrofitting my old manual milling machine to CNC. It's an old 1970 swedish Varnamo U-1 with 4kW spindle motor and X875, Y210, Z450mm movement. I was asking about this on our finnish cnc forum and got few ideas. My first idea was to fit ballscrews and big Nema34 or 42 steppers. But then one idea was to use dual encoder drivers and readout scales for table location, the idea was to use the orginal screws with this setup. Only things that the drivers only work with brushed DC servos that seems to be hard to find for a resonable price. Another idea was to make an external X/Y table with ballscrews that you could lift on the orginal table, so the mill could be used as orginal manual when needed, Z axle would of course need a stepper/servo, but could maybe use the orginal screw..?
Another question is about servos. I may be able to get for free, or for very low cost, old servos like this:
or
and also drivers like this:
Is there any chance I could use these, or some of them with some quite cheap other components? My knowledge in CNC building is close to zero even if I work every day as a cnc-laser cut operator.
Edit. And here is a pic of the mill: