Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] CNC Conversion for Education

Robert, Darrell, and anyone of interest.
My first intro to CNC was back in 1966, I was a Junior in High School,
Our Metal shop got a surplus CNC 3axis mill that was missing all the
electronics. I was in the schools Vocational Electronics class (2year
program). I suggested very strongly that the Vocational Class be given
the "assignment of building a new set of electronics for it. How ever
the Powers that BE turrned that Idea down. Fast forward 6 years, I had
gotten out of the Army, a friend who was part owner in a machine shop
had bought the mill from the school district. Another friend of his and
I built a new set of electronics for it for about $100.00 and some
scrounging. The electronics worked for another 20 years before being
retired. I still think that getting the Electronics class to work with
the Metal shop classes to get it running would have been an education
well worth the time. I don't know if Darrell's school has an electronics
program, but if they do, I think getting them involved would be a Great
idea.
Bill Higdon
my $0.02 worth ( adjusted for Inflation)

Robert Campbell wrote:

> Darrell,
>
> You may want to contact Roland Friestad at Cardinal Engineering. Roland did
> a series if articles back about 1990 in the Home Shop Machinist on
> converting mill and lathes. He is currently running a new series of article
> in Home Shop Machinist.
>
> I am in the process of converting an Enco mill for a local high school using
> plans that I got from Roland. Roland will sell you a set of copies from the
> articles that he ran back in 1990. This would be a great place to start.
>
> For parts, I have been seeing a number of stepper motors on Ebay that may be
> strong enough for a mill. The electronics is fairly straight forward using
> Gecko drives.
>
> If you need help with the electronics, I can furnish you with a set of
> drawings that the students could use.
>
> Bob Campbell
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <dewoodwood@...>
> To: <CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 3:26 PM
> Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] CNC Conversion for Education
>
>
>
>>I have been a machinist all my life and just recently a senior high
>>school manufacturing teacher. Because of all the school budget
>>cutbacks, I want to try to convert existing conventional lathes and
>>vertical mills to cnc. The schools do not have the money to either
>>convert these (quoted around 6,000) or buy new cnc machine. I wanted
>>to put together an engineering package which is based on current
>>school curriculum so that machine shop teachers on limited budgets
>>could follow these plans in order to convert their equipment as a
>>class project during the semester. Has anybody out there converted a
>>full size lathe or vertical mill to cnc--at a resonable cost--say
>>around 1,000 dollars? What size, i.e., holding torque did you use,
>>and whose controller, drivers and software did you use? I have many
>>old 486s lying around so I wanted to use turbocnc for the software--
>>it's Shareware. I fear that if someone does not take this kind of
>>action (reasonable conversions of conventional lathes and vertical
>>mills) that manufacturing high school programs will whither away to
>>purely simulation and model building programs--Manufacturing teachers
>>have the equipment and rather than sell it, let's convert it and give
>>our students and our schools something more than simulation and model
>>building.
>>Thanks
>>Darrell