So I finally pulled the trigger on ordering the CNC conversion kit for my mill.  After a fair amount of internal debate trying to decide between the Deluxe kit from CNC Fusion and the MX3 kit from PROMiCA, I went with the nicer (and unfortunately pricier) PROMiCA kit.  For now I’ve just ordered the basic hardware-only kit from the US distributor, EVSource.  This gives me all of the custom metal parts for the conversion, single-nut ballscrews, pulleys, belts, custom plastic covers, etc.  Basically, everything short of the motors and electronics.  The kit looks very well made, and I like their belt drive design better than the typical axially-mounted motor conversions that most other kits use.

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Unfortunately there’s a four week wait to get the kits, presumably because they build them to order, and they’re coming from Australia.  It’s not the end of the world, however, since there are still a lot of other things to sort out in the mean time.  I have ordered my stepper motors for the three axes, and I am in the process of deciding on stepper motor drives, power supply, breakout-boards, and other electronics stuff.  I’d like to get most of that stuff up and running before the kit shows up so I at least have a PC moving the motors, but I’m not going to rush things.

Definitely looking forward to getting it up and running.  If anyone has any projects they’d like to do, now would be a good time to let me know.  I will definitely have a lot of learning curve to climb for the machine to be fully useful, but I would like to collaborate on stuff so the machine sees some use beyond my own occasional projects.