I purchased a Grizzly G1007 (just a G1006 with the X axis powerfeed). Well, it's been working great, and I use it almost every day for little jobs. But now I really need a CNC setup. I use my mill at work, and there are some new product ideas I want to work on, that were slated to be pushed off until later this year (because of the expense of a pre-made CNC setup from Haas, etc). I want to get a jumpstart on development and boost my learning curve so when the big mill comes later this year, I am not green to CNC and the parts development will be further along.
So, I have this G1006 I want to CNC.
-I am going to go with (I believe) the power supply and case from Camtronics. I was planning to get motors, power supply, case, cables, connectors, and heat sinks from him. Any comments on that? I trust Dan is a good guy - heard good things.
-I have the Geckos myself - I got a deal on them from a guy on eBay. I have the G320's. It seems the 340 just has the pulse multiplier, which I dont think I need, do I???
-If I get the motors from Camtronics, I will have to fabricate my own mounting for them. If I get them from the homecnc.info site, I can get plans there too to build the mounting to get the motors mounted. The Camtronics motors are 600oz-in but the homecnc ones are 430oz-in. I'm leaning towards using the 600oz-in and just working out the mounting myself. Any comments on that?
-I need to convert to ballscrews. Which ones should I get? Do I really need to pay for ground or are rolled ok? What diameter and pitch should I get? And do all screw sellers sell the ends with the screws? How are the ends mounted??
-If I make the motor mountings myself, I am not too well versed in what bearings I need. I see people using double bearings. Why? Don't I just need a single plain old bearing where the ballscrew comes through the mount where the motor is? I'm afraid I will mis-design this part and it could be better to go with the pre-made plan.
-Do people convert the Z axis to a ballscrew or just make do with what it comes with? Maybe I could get just the Z-axis plans from homecnc and use the more powerful motors for my X and Y and make my own mounts???
-I use AutoDesk Inventor to make my part drawings now. Any suggestions on CAM software? I will be doing 3 axis machining and would ideally like the capability to go to 4 or 5 using the same software (for when the bigger machine comes and I dont need to learn a whole new package). I prefer windows based and graphical. I tried the demo of Visual Mill and liked it. I tried MasterCAM and hated it. Visual mill is a lot of $$$ though.
-What about G-Code control software? I have a PC and I can run anything on it - DOS, Linux, Windows. Is there a consensus on the best Mill control software to use? Preferably free And hopefully able to function as a DRO and also have jog keys so I can still do stuff manually.
Thanks! Any other comments or feedback would be great. I'm hoping to order up a lot of these parts in the coming week and go from there.