Just recently acquired the lathe as some know, haven't even had it for a month. I always knew I would want to convert it to CNC just didn't think it would be this soon. Thanks to a great individual I know now who has done a CNC conversion on his G0602 I have the ability to do it as he will be machining all the parts I need since I have no mill.

So this will be a thread I will keep updates in as the process goes along. Parts have been coming in and I pretty much have just about everything I will need to get it up and running.

Parts list required to get conversion done and running.

Motors- will be using 2 381 oz/in stepper motors from Keling- Received

Power Supply- 48V/7.5A power supply from Keling- Received

Controller- will be using the Gecko G540 4 axis controller, purchased from Keling-Received

Ballscrew/Ballnuts- didn't go all out crazy on these, purchased from McMaster-Carr, the person who is making all the lathe parts for me got .003" of backlash with them and was able to considerably program it out with backlash compensation.-Received

Lathe hardware- as I said I have a guy I know making it all for me, process started on it today. Will include everything needed such as motor brackets, mounting plates, bearing block, yeah everything that is needed.

Index pulse card- will use this so that i have an output of spindle speed so that I can do threading. Purchased the index pulse card from cnc4pc and it should be here probably tomorrow. I will have to fabricate a bracket for the sensor and the piece to go on the spindle.

Computer- it is possible to use my laptop with an external motion controller which cost around $160, however I will probably go the craigslist route and buy an older desktop with monitor for around $100 which more than meets the requirements to run the program.

Software- The machine will be ran with Mach3, definitely will be diving into the whole CAD/CAM/Gcode stuff but it does have wizards to do a lot of the more basic type stuff. Very exciting to learn to make more complex turned items.-I have the program.

Very excited to get this underway, will be much easier to make things, not to mention stuff that is impossible or near impossible to do manually, especially for a newbie. I know I will have a lot to learn and will welcome the challenge. My friend making the parts for me is thinking of offering the conversion kit for sale. If you would be interested in it please feel free to let me know and we can work on getting you to computer controlled happiness. =D

Some pics for your enjoyment.

One of the ballnuts- also ordered slightly larger balls and will see if that reduces backlash without messing with the backlash compensation.

Power supply and an estop switch that will be wired to the G540 and all put together in a fan cooled enclosure.

Both motors, hopefully enough power, only issue could possibly be drilling with Z axis but i think it should handle it

MT3 qctp holder- sure can be used manually but just wanted to include it since it will be used for CNC drilling =D

Ballscrew- will be cut into two pieces, should be tons of fun turning it on the lathe

In addition I will also be getting rid of the cross slide, both to increase rigidity as well as to enable me to use all 1/2" tools with the QCTP. As I am sure many of you know who have a G0602 with a QCTP if you try to use a 1/2" tool that the bit is flush with the top of the tool then it sits above center even at the lowest setting. There are some really nice tools out there that unfortunately arent available in less than 1/2" so this will let me use those =). i will have a block attached to the two stock mounting holes which will also be tapped for the QCTP and sit around .3" lower than the stock height is.

Future plans sometime down the road will be a replacement motor and VFD that way i can have mach control the spindle speed. Possibly a coolant system of some sorts. Some improvements will be done shortly after such as constructing pieces to protect chips from getting to the ballscrews or other important areas. Motors will initially be soldered to extra lengths of wire but i will eventually put in some connections so that the motors can easily be disconnecting from the wiring harness easily. Possibly some gang tooling when I become more familiar with CNC programming? Not to the lathe but I am sure the grizzly model X3 will join the lathe someday and get itself a nice CNC conversion.

But yea that is it for now I guess, feel free to comment or ask questions. I will also update this as I get anymore parts in and as I go a long removing the stock pieces and hooking stuff up, testing it out, and start turning out some parts.

How much are you paying this "guy" to mill the parts for you, I strongly recommend buying the X3 before continuing and preform all machining your self, if not for being independent in the construction of your projects, rather to get more practice machining.  

Titaniumboy said:

Great project!  I'm looking forward to your posts as you progress in your CNC build.

Will you have an external control panel with things such as a MPG (manual pulse generator)?  I assume you've seen the in-progress CNC conversion by CreviceReamer?  Also the crazy stuff that Hossmachine has done with small mini-mills.  Hossmachine also has a G0602, but hasn't made any apparent progress in doing a CNC conversion.

i have definitely seen his thread, such a great build with lots of stuff done. no sort of plan for an external control panel, i will just be operating everything by keyboard as i will have it very close to the lathe. a lot of the stuff i do at first will be "manually" i will just be pressing arrow keys instead of turning dials. once i get the hang of the wizards and converting cad files to gcode everything will be ran by the gcode. although they have an xbox controller plugin for mach3 so i may configure that up to operate it with the xbox controller =)

i will probably be building some sort of chuck guard soon and also looking into creating some sort of basin for the lathe so that i can have coolant routed and drained out through the backside.

Jeremy,

I will never claim to be an expert on this stuff, because I'm not, but I am in the middle of a CNC class right now.  One of the common tasks on the CNC vertical mill is setting tool length offsets.  A tool length offset tells the machine where the tip of the tool is in relation to the material being machined – otherwise the machine has no idea where the end of the tool is located.

I would really miss having the MPG wheel on the control console while bringing the tool down to touch the top of the workpiece.  The MPG wheel allows you to go as slow or as fast as you need to go.  In conjunction with the MPG wheel is a switch that changes the resolution of the MPG wheel.  One position of the switch has each click of the MPG wheel move 0.010 inches.  The other switch positions are 0.001 and 0.0001 inches per MPG wheel click.

I haven't used a CNC lathe yet, but I would think the above considerations still apply.

How have you envisioned using the computer keyboard to move the tool?  Each press of the space bar moving the tool some specified amount (like 0.010" or 0.001" or 0.0001")?

I'm really looking forward to seeing your CNC conversion.  Exciting!