Titaniumboy said:

Jeremy,

This CNC Z-Bot Jog Dial II from Little Machine Shop looks like it would be useful for a CNC conversion.

 

The Z-Bot Jog Dial II replaces the hand cranks on CNC mills.

The Z-Bot Jog Dial II is a USB jog pendent controller developed to work in conjunction with the popular Mach3 CNC control software. It is supplied with an installation disc that contains a Mach3 custom plug-in. The Jog Dial II is highly flexible, easy to use, requires minimal configuration, and does not use any parallel port pins.

The Jog Dial II USB controller has an inner and outer dial. Used for rapid coarse positioning, the outer dial will jog progressively faster, up to the full jog speed configured in Mach 3, as the dial is turned further to the right or left of the center detent. The outer dial springs back to center position when released. Used for fine positioning, the inner dial jogs the machine one step increment, as configured in Mach3 for each "click." Four buttons are used to select the axis to jog. The fifth button is easily configured for a variety of Mach3 functions using the plug-in supplied.

 

i was searching some sites about index debounce for mach 3 and came across a site of someone who did a CNC conversion on a 7x lathe. one of the things they mentioned happened to be this style jog dial. turns out it is just a shuttle xpress which is made for A/V editing. from a quick search they can be had on ebay for $40-50 which is like half of what LMS sells their version for. there is also a shuttlepro which is more hand held shaped and has 15 buttons available vise the 5 of the xpress one. $55 on ebay, i think i may pick one up

well its pretty much done. X and Z are hooked up and operating!! only thing left it just some clean up, putting stuff back together, routing cables and figuring out where i want to have the computer/monitor/controller box to sit. now it is time to start learning how to operate it lol. i will post some vids when i get a chance.

oh yeah and cutting that ball screw suuucccckkkkks. i hope to never have to work with hardened materials again.

Titaniumboy said:

jeremy0203 said:

well its pretty much done. X and Z are hooked up and operating!! only thing left it just some clean up, putting stuff back together, routing cables and figuring out where i want to have the computer/monitor/controller box to sit. now it is time to start learning how to operate it lol. i will post some vids when i get a chance.

 

oh yeah and cutting that ball screw suuucccckkkkks. i hope to never have to work with hardened materials again.

Yeah, we definitely are in need of more pictures.

You cut the hardened ball screw?  I always thought that these needed to be cut off with some sort of abrasive cutoff wheel.  Or at least grind through the hardened surface case.

ill get pics and videos soon, gotta clean up the work area as it is a mess and finishing mounting some stuff and run cables a better way.

i ground down the outside of the screw with an angle grinder then did the rest on the lathe which was still tough for a while.