When slaving A to X, I suspect that your problem is that both motors are
turning the same direction. One should turn clockwise and the other counter
clockwise. You built one CNC router why not build an indexer from scratch
with the strength needed for the job.
From: "Chainlink" <dustinyo...@hotmail.com>
To: "Legacy Ornamental Mills" <legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 8:24 PM
Subject: Build log of sorts for a 1200 upgrade to CNC
I thought that after the chat in the All New Members thread that I
would actually attempt to convert my 1200 to CNC, since it may be of
great interest to some of the members.
On one hand, I hate to reinvent the wheel and try to replicate the
work already done by Legacy; I have a certain amount of guilt about
this. On the other hand, the CNC upgrade was something like $4000 and
is no longer offered by Legacy, so I'm going to modify my machine in
the way that I see fit.
I'd like to explain where I came from to get to where I am today,
ready to make this CNC conversion. I was one of the early adopters of
the Carvewright when it was first released to Sears. The machine can
do truly amazing work that makes me jump up and down with joy...when
it works. The other times, and this usually means as soon as I accept
a paid job for some CNC project, the machine breaks down in some
obscure way and much swearing ensues, followed by opening my wallet to
replace parts. In addition to reliabilty, my machine is not capable of
routing a round hole. Most of my work tends to be vector cuts(wooden
gears, trophies, etc.), so this lack of precision is disturbing.
With this dubious history in mind, I decided to build a second CNC
machine from scratch so that I had a reliable backup that was
inherently more precise. I decided to build a Rockcliff Model D based
on the ease of use of the plans and the cheap to make rail system. One
feature of the Rockcliff D is that it has two stepper motors running
the X-axis, the A-axis slaved to the X-axis. My machine was built
entirely out of MDF and I was quite happy with the accuracy of my
work. Everything was working according to plan until the day I hooked
up Mach 3 and tested the different axes. During the test, the X-axis
and its slave moved in opposite directions, tearing the gantry apart,
ruining the entire build. I think the problem was either the type of
cable I used(unshielded) to run from the motors or a weak parallel
port on my PC (though I don't understand how direction could get
messed up like that, it should have been just missed steps).
So, there my broken machine sat for a year, $1000+ dollars invested in
lead screws, steppers and drivers. Now we have arrived at this summer,
and I had a new CNC project to work on, 6 trophies for the YMCA
triathlon. I whipped them out on the carvewright and sure enough, it
broke down with 2 to carve! I managed to solve the problem and
finished the carvings, but I realized something important. Building
another 3-axis machine doesn't really help me do anything different
from my current capabilities with the Carvewright (when it works). My
money and time would better serve me by adding something new to my
toolbox, and that is ultimately why I've decided to try to apply CNC
to the legacy.
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