daved Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 Does anyone have any experience of doing CNC conversions? I have an old key cutting machine (essentially a vertical mill) which I thought I might be able to convert by adding stepper motors and driving the whole shebang from a PC. I['ve spent hours browsing and nowhere can I find a chart which tells me what size motors I need and that, of course, is only the first step. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petercoulson Posted March 22, 2008 Report Share Posted March 22, 2008 it is years since i saw a home made machine, i think it may be a problem getting or running good enough software. as for motors no idea. may be worth just keeping an eye on ebay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daved Posted March 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2008 Peter, Software isn't a probem - there are a handful of freebies out there and a couple of economical commercial options (Mach3 at £70, for example). All I need this machine to do is copy text onto the piece - there's no photos involved. Getting hold of motors isn't a problem, either. It's which motors that's important. My key cutting machine is tiny by normal engineering standards and all the conversions I've seen (and I've looked at dozens) are for much bigger machines. The solutions used with them would be over-engineered in my case. I'm looking for the smallest motors I can get away with so I can mount them on the machine itself. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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