Newbie

[biggerm]

Hey everyone. I am just starting to get into this after taking a class on manual programming at school. I was thinking about starting out with a small verticle mill/drill and converting it to CNC. Can anyone tell me where to get an affordable conversion for the mill/drill. I found a vert mill for about $500, but I haven't really found any CNC conversions. I would like to be able to use the program to convert drawings to NC code, but it's not really necessary. Any help would be appriciated.

Jeremy

[This message has been edited by biggerm (edited 03-27-2004).]

[Mike W]

Hi Jeremy. I can't help you but keep us informed of your progress.

[SGW]

A friend of mine, Ron Ginger, has played around with doing his own CNC on Sherline equipment. See http://plsntcov.8m.com/
His e-mail address ought to be there someplace.

He may have some ideas for you.

[biggerm]

SGW, Thanks for the input. I was looking at a Grizzly also. So, if worse came to worse I could always build my own controls. But I would like to have a turnkey kit. I don't mind installing it on the machine, but I don't know if I could build it. Like I said, I am new at this, and I think it's going to take a little more than one semester of school to learn how to build it.

[SGW]

Roland Friestad of Cardinal Engineering had a series in HSM, "Computers in the Shop," that might be useful. See www.cardinaleng.com

[Paul Alciatore]

BG,

I haven't done any CNC yet but I hope to do something one day. Here's some links I have in my CNC Favorites folder.

http://www.mendonet.com/cnclinks/index.html

http://www.jrkerr.com/

http://www.mastercam.com/

http://www.pilotltd.net/cnc.htm

http://www.luberth.com/cstep/

http://www.compucutters.com/

http://www.alzanti.com/start.htm

If you do a web search on "CNC" you will get thousands of hits.

Have fun and keep us informed of the results. Pictures, if possible.

Paul A.