Re: CNC Jr.

Tim, Forgot to add,

There's a new guy offering a similar M/D retrofit on ebay. Sells for
about 4-1/2 grand. With SERVOS. (sounds like Geckos from the
description, and Mach1 for the control)

The one big gotcha on most of these m/d retrofits: Microkinetics, CNC
Jr. , Cardinal engineering (which makes Flashcut's machines), and
Roland F's (Cardinals main dude) published designs in HSM, is this:

The Z axis backlash. Dan Mauch had some plans and may have some parts
for a well thought out retrofit to solve the m/d z backlash problem;
(does require some "must get it right lathe work) and Jeff at CNC-
home (or some such) uses a direct servo drive to eliminate it by
bypassing the worm/rack Z drive.

You asked for bewares, and that's the biggest one with these M/D's,
IMO. (Besides the already mentioned too-high pricing)

Many would add that the inability to preserve location when raising
the power head (difficulty, really, as there are several workable
techniques, and one triangular key mod-my own- to deal with this
problem.) But you need to remember that 5 inches of Z gets used up
fast when you switch from drill to reamer to endmill...

Hope this helps,

Ballendo

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Tim Warris" <tim@w...> wrote:
> Hello. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with the
> CNC Jr. from CNC Masters? I am concidering one of these machines
> and was curious about the accuracy/repeatability of these machines.
>
> If you have had any experience with this machine I would like to
> know if it was good or bad and what I need to look out for.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Tim