Paul wrote:

Very elegant solution to motor mount brackets

Frank.

That is the trouble with those NC mills. They

are expensive and

they MUST be paid for.

Paul Lamar

Mark Wrathall wrote:
Paul, I am suprised you never added CNC to that Bridgeport of yours. There
is an outstanding Linux machine control program (EMC Linuxcnc.org) which
runs standard G-code and controls either a stepper driver through the
parallel port or servos though the servo-to-go card. I bought an excellent
light duty stepper controller from a guy in Germany to learn this stuff
(NC-Step.de) , but with your electronics experience, I'm sure you could
easily cook up your own, or replace the power amp stages with something
powerful enough to drive big steppers on the bridgeport.

I am still on this CNC learning curve, but if you want any pointers to

info

or sources I have been trolling the internet quite intensively on this.

Mark

I don't have a Bridgeport. I wish I did. My hangar neighbor has one
however. I have a cheap Chinese mill. I don't really want to go into
business. I could, I guess, finance a NC mill and start making parts.
It is the rest of the business I don't like :-)

I have been following those developments sort of. What worries me
is the lead screws among other things in the Chinese mills would probably
have to be changed as they are not up to real mill standards.

I took a two semester course a few years ago in NC machine tool programming.

Paul Lamar

Mark wrote:
Another early start Paul.

The thing I can see with a CNC conversion, is for about $1000 you can turn
any mill into a machine capable of the sort of complex shapes which are
otherwise out of reach to the normal guy. At the end of the day, the
accuracy of the machine ways will determine the accuracy of the conversion.
For a home shop, you don't need super fast traverses, as it doesn't matter
if it takes 3 hours for your machine to hog out a part.

Replacing lead screws with ball screws looks like it requires a bit of cash,
a few milled parts, and a lathe. http://www.homecnc.info/ballscrew.htm

So far my list of jobs to do when I one get a garage, then mill, then CNC
it:

Al Center housing with two milled down Cast iron housings for their nitrided
surfaces. (The center housing should be a no brainer. The rear housing has a
timing gear to locate, and front has the timing gear, the threads for the
tension bolts, and the interface components, so would be a bigger job).
Aluminum sump spacer engine mount
PP rotor housings, and the bits for the throttle bodies.
Exhaust flange
Alternator bracket
PRSU Mount plate
Milled RV-4 rudder pedals )

Figure if I use my time before I get my garage to learn CNC, this stuff will
save enough to pay for the mill and CNC conversion.
Mark Wrathall.

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