Some Pics of the Enclosure

Testing CNC with TurboCNC 2nd Movie

Testing CNC with TurboCNC

Twisted Pair Wiring For Stepper Motors

I have been wanting to try making twisted pair wiring a while, ever since I saw a Make video where Bre Pettis shows the technique.


Wire cut and ready for twisting














Chuck the 2 ends in a cordless drill, hand tighten.















Hold the opposite ends in a clamp, clamped to a bench.



















Ready to go!



















The chuck is a blurr of motion as the wire winds up.
Over tighten a bit then revers the drill to uncoil the built up
energy.



















What the twisted pair looks like after twisting.














The finished product, ready to go between the motor controller and
the stepper motors. (actually there are 2 twisted pairs per stepper)

Hardware Installed!

 
 
  

Sherline Lathe Motor Mount Kit

These are pics of the stepper motor mount kit (PN 6720). I have to say it looks pretty nice. If all goes well with this kit, I will be ordering the Milling Machine Kit.


 
 
 
  

Toward Completing The Lathe

This is from Sunday Night, I am on the completion side of installing the motor mounts. I had to drill and tap 2 holes on the bed, and 2 on the cross slide. The second pic shows the 2 drilled and tapped holes on the slide. I did the bed with the fixture that sherline supplied and used a (I am ashamed to admit it) cordless hand drill and all things considered it went well . I tapped them "freehand". The installation there seems fine. After that I decided that the mental stress was not worth a repeat, all I had to do was clear out about a ton of stuff in front of my bridgeport to drill and tap it in relative style. So that is what I did. I must say a bridgeport is a joy to use.

The only thing that kept me from finishing the mount installation today was that I had not read real close that I needed loctite, and I could not find my bottle, and by then all the stores were closed. First thing tomorrow I plan on getting some and finishing it up.

Mounting the motors should be fairly noncomplex. Hopefully everything will be operating ok. If so then I will be setting up a box for the motor controller board. I will probably hard wire it at first then get in some 6 or 8 pin din connectors for the stepper motors. There are only 4 wires but from looking at the jameco catalog it looks like there might be some availibility problems with 4 and 5 pin connectors.



 
  

Lathe Motor Mount Kit Arrives

The motor mount kit came in, it is the Sherline CNC stepper mount kit. PN 6720 from tabletopmachineshop.com. The price was $190 plus $7.40 shipping. They took paypal. I ordered it Sunday night and it was delivered Saturday afternoon.

I got through disassembling the Sherline Lathe and there isn't much too them. I drilled and tapped the holes on the bed. I have to drill and tap the mounts on the cross slide, and I will reassemble tomorrow (hopefully) and get the stepper motors mounted.

Xylotex Looks Good!

I am really impressed with xylotex.com so far. I ordered the 4 axis board and stepper kit Sunday and it was delivered Wednesday. I just got done finding a computer to put together, installing win 98 to run turbocnc. I had a spare 20gig hd that had win xp home installed and it aparently does not mind if 98 shares it! It will not boot the win xp of course, because xp is designed that way. That is just as well. Maybee I will try installing turbocnc on the computer tomorrow. Hopefully the motor mount kit I ordered from tabletopmaching will come in. If it doesn't I still have to find a case to install the xylotex motor control board in.

Motor Mounts Kit PN 6720 Accepts Paypal

Found someone that takes paypal. Their descriptions are poor but the price and payment is acceptable. tabletopmachineshop.com is the site and hopefully they will be a good vendor and get the conversiokit to me quick! I just have to make sure the drive is what I want from xylotex.com

Motor Mounts for Sherline Lathe

I am ready to order, but having trouble deciding on where to order it. I decided to go with the sherline mounts and leadscrew package PN 6720. This is based on a recomendation by irritatedvowel. I am sorta disappointed in that the sherline page doesn't really do a good job of describing the why and what of their mounts. They might but the site is pretty hard to navigate to find things that you know are on it even. Another annoying thing is the mount is list priced at $200 but on the sherline site checkout it is $250. I found a site linked as a dealer of sherline parts (on the sherline site) that sells it for $190, but it looks like you have to go through the checkout to find what shipping is, including putting your credit card number in. I will look to see if I can find a dealer that takes paypal but if not I will call them Monday to order.

Acumotion also sell a "sherline" motor mount kit that is alot less expensive, but it is only the mounts and flex connector, it is minus leadscrew like the sherline kit includes. It would be nice to know why a new leadscrew is necessary, and maybee if they had a writeup of the pro/cons of the mounts.

I have pretty much deciced to by the xylotex 4 axis kit, it seems to have everything except case and cabling. I would have to wire it for the steppers etc. Even though I only need 2 axis on the lathe, I like the idea of have the extra 2 axis in case I want to add something like a turret or add speed control to the drive motor. Just checked that site and it is down right now. I guess it will all have to wait until tomorrow.