Last summer I converted a mid-'50s Logan 920 cabinet lathe over to CNC, going with the usual home-shop mods of a couple steppers and some eBay ballscrews. I have a fairly extensive step by step write-up of the whole process (as well as other machine tool rebuilds) if anyone wants to see the gory details.
While I got the machine running, more or less (no encoder, no limit switches, etc.) on Mach 3, I'm still very much the inexperienced noob on the software side of CNC, and even with some slightly more experienced help, we had a lot of difficulty going from drawing to model to toolpath to finished part.
I also didn't like M3's poor encoder capability, as more than half the parts I need to produce need to be threaded- in some cases multi-lead. I was quite happy to see the Acorn announced, and waited patiently until the lathe software was released.
I'm just starting the conversion over from the old XP/M3/BOB setup (which works) and getting ready for the new parts. The first piece of which is the spindle encoder, the mount for which I might have gone a little bit overboard.
The encoder itself is a Koyo from Automationdirect, as recommended in the "encoder suitability" thread, and currently on sale at $65. The pulleys are XL timing belt parts from Mcmaster-Carr, suitably modified. The bearings were "whatever I had in the drawer" and everything else was scrap from the material racks.
(The encoder mount build section starts here.)Stand by for a bunch of stupid questions on both the setup and how to run the Acorn. I'm pretty new at this.
Doc.
