Hi Ralph,

No matter which way you look at it you will need to mount the motors, run cables, install a power supply or two. ?I'd even add a BoB of some sort to simplify the cables and wiring.

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At this point you have everything except a machine that moves under computer control.? If you have a PC around that runs windows and it has a parallel port you can potentially run MACH3 with a 1PPR sensor and you can cut any thread you want.? The learning curve isn't super high and it could always be moved to the mill to make powered axis on that useful.? If you don't have a DRO on your mill the improvement will be astounding.

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Or, if money isn't an issue add that multi-line encoder instead of a 1PPR sensor and install LinuxCNC on an old PC.? Again the costs, other than how you measure spindle encoding are zero as long as you have that PC handy.? LinuxCNC also can't use a 1 PPR sensor but it's happy with far less than 1800 lines.

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I have friend here locally who is in his 70's. I wanted to get him to use my ELS.? Instead he installed a PC with MACH3 and hasn't looked back.? Finds it easy to use.? Same with his mill that also has MACH3 on it.

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I had power feed on the X axis and still have the Shumatech DRO-350 on my mill.? I used an ELS to run the Z axis for power up/down. ?Now with a dual boot PC and all three axis controlled by either MACH3 or LinuxCNC I'm finding there are some things I'd still like as a manual mill but I'm getting used to having CNC on the mill.

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As for the South Bend Heavy 10L lathe, one day I must really add a motor to the cross slide but the lathe has a mechanical taper attachment so it's not critical.? If I wanted power cross feed I can set up the gearbox and levers to give me automatic cross slide motion.

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But I just cut metric threads last week using my ELS and also ?turned to several shoulders.? Boring to depth is also not an issue.?

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Oh and here's what I'm prepping to use with my Gingery lathe and the BeagleBone Black (MachineKit) for CNC in addition to the index pulse still being long enough for my ELS.? The only surprise I had was that black PLA filament wasn't impervious to the infrared from the sensors so I had to spray the print with silver autobody paint.? I'm pretty sure the sensors were from an old printer.? If not they aren't that expensive.

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I'll mount it something like this with an L bracket to the bearing clamp so I can adjust both radially and along the spindle to get the clearance right.?? It will also serve as a guard against the spinning teeth.

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I promised myself I'd finish the Mill CNC conversion before I let myself be distracted by yet another project.? That includes ELS upgrades. Cross slide on the South Bend.? Even digging into the external stepper driver issues I'm having with the old motor drivers on the Gingery Lathe.? Z has started to be a bit wonky.? I've attached a larger JPG that shows the BoB and the motor drivers. ?

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And I do have surplus 100 line per rev BEI encoder (replacement from Digikey I think was $800) that would also work on my lathe with a couple of toothed pulleys and a belt.? So I didn't have to build the 3D printed version.? But again, as I understand the RELS requires 1800 lines so I couldn't use it for that even though I believe LinuxCNC would have no trouble.? I don't know about MACH4.

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There are many ways to skin a cat.

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John

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