Sloppy Z

So I’m having some major trouble with slop in my Z axis, regardless of how tightly I’ve cranked down the gib adjuster.   While what follows may not…

Progress

So the CNC conversion is really not quite done, even though I’ve been using the machine to create parts.  Still lots of cleanup, fine tuning, and other…

First Metal!

I made my first part out of aluminum last evening.  I’ve been slowly designing the electronics enclosure, and I needed a means to mount and cool the…

First Successful Testing

After sorting out with the manufacturer that the lead screws are in fact imperial, not metric, everything makes a lot more sense.  I had been wondering whether…

Y Axis Debugging

Posted for the EMC2 folks on IRC.  Here is a simple test with my dial indicator. Here is another test, which uses my “poor man’s DRO” to…

More Pictures

Here’s the result of another one of the included G-Code files from EMC2.  Superficially it looks pretty neat, but it exposes some of the issues I’m currently…

It’s Alive!

Well, the part hasn’t yet arrived from Australia, despite the company shipping it out with all due speed.  Kudos to them for doing that, but the fact…

Pictures of the Conversion (so far…)

Here are some photos of the conversion so far, mostly the tear-down and building up the Z axis. In other news, the kit manufacturers have supposedly shipped…

Kit Installation Has Begun

Last night I finally was able to start the process of tearing down my milling machine and rebuilding it with the parts from the CNC kit.  I…

Kit Has Arrived!

The ProMiCA CNC kit has arrived!  Now just the significant task of putting it all together remains… Kit quality is quite high – part fit and finish…

Symphony of Steppers

I wired up all three axes today, and also hooked up the super high quality 200V DMM module that I picked up on eBay direct from China….

Signs of Life

Finally had some time this weekend to hook up a stepper drive, stepper motor, power supply, and a PC to see if EMC2 would move a motor. …

Gecko Infestation

The Gecko stepper motor drivers have arrived, along with my cheap and cheerful dual PCI parallel port card.  There should be enough stuff here to make some…

Three Cheers for Flat-Rate Postage Boxes

My linear power supply arrived today, and it’s big and heavy as I expected.  After poring over data sheets and doing more research and fretting and calculating,…

Stepper Motors

The stepper motors have arrived! I went with the same brand that ProMiCA used in their kit, but the higher torque version. Still need to order my…