Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

Fusion 360 CAM is obviously positioned for HSM on serious mills, as witnessed by default spindle speeds of 10K and feeds of 60 in/minute. My old knee mill sounds pretty uncomfortable at even at 3500RPM, so that sort of feed rate is out of the question. The bulk of my work is in aluminum using 1/4&qu...

Looks like the days of decent home-built wire EDM machines might be upon us. This guy/company in the Netherlands is selling an arc generator (the big expense of such a machine) and has an in-depth video compilation of how to build his open-source mechanical platform: https://baxedm.com https://baxed...

Next item on the check list: Spindle speed control. I punched a hole in the cabinet that houses my Automation Direct GS2 VFD using a Greenly knockout punch. These punches are nice in that they split the slug making removal from the punch die very easy. IMG_1402.jpg IMG_1403.jpg I used shielded Cat6 ...

[Elrod Kit install CONTINUED] Next, you have to ensure that the ball screw pulley and the motor pulley line up. This means you have to at least test-mount the motor to the motor mount provided with the kit. I wasn’t able to do this, since the holes in the faceplate of my motor did not line up with t...

Back to regularly scheduled programming: a few more posts to finish up this build log. Let's start with a mercifully quick summary of the Elrod Z-axis kit install: You take a bunch of stuff off of your mill’s head, including the quill stop thread and the quill auto-feed speed selector: IMG_1423.jpg ...

This is truly an inspiration, particularly since you have a setup very similar to mine. Something for me to aspire to!

Truly impressive! Got one that works with R8 collets?

Overdue for an update, and the big news is I’ve successfully added “Z” to my formerly 2-axis conversion! I’ve joined (most of) the rest of you in the *t h i r d d i m e n s i o n* (meant to be read with an echo effect). This escape from flatland started with the purchase of a suitable Z-axis motor. ...

Thanks for the offer! I should have thought to ask the forum earlier. As it turned out, I 3D printed one. At 90% infill (i.e. nearly solid plastic), it's sufficiently rigid to do the alignment job it's intended to do:

Background: For those of us converting knee mills to CNC, arguably the trickiest piece is the Z-axis. Historically, the premier solution to this problem was the Elrod Z-axis kit designed, patented, and sold by Elrod Machine out of Flagstaff, AZ. Sometime around April of 2018, Elrod Machine was acqui...