Compucut

Anybody any experience/opinions of Compucut? Looking at the x1 project since I have one of those.

Reply to
Andy Parker
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From what I recall of the Compucut hardware, it is basically a crude half-stepping drive system. For a similar price you could buy three of the 3A/phase microstepping stepper drives from Arc Eurotrade

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which will give you better performance in my opinion. See MEW issue 121 - the second part of my article on converting a Taig mill - or my website here:
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for details of how to use those drives to produce a 3-axis system for a small mill.

I would not consider the Compucut software to be a serious option. At the moment I am operating my X3 and Taig mills using DeskCNC

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- their serial port-based controller plus stoftware will cost you about £180.

Mach3 is also worth serious consideration

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- I will be using this on my ML7 conversion. With Mach3 you can run programs of up to 1000 lines of G-code without registering the product, but registration is only $159 (cheaper than Compucut & significantly more versatile). You would probably choose to use a parallel port "breakout board" with this, like the ones offered by CNC4PC
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so the cost will end up similar to going with DeskCNC.

Regards, Tony

Reply to
Tony Jeffree

If it of interest have a look at my experience in converting an X1 from Arc Euro Trade.

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It may give you some ideas for your own.

Having used it now for some months I am extremely pleased with the results.

Alan

Reply to
Alan Marshall

Due to advances in stepper drives, motors and generally the whole CNC scene things have moved on from the older 1/2 step low power drives and the limitations they produced.

Off the shelf affordable drives from the like of Arc Euro and plenty of people doing their thing like Alan above has opened up far better ways of converting machines. Note in Alan's case his adoption of using the whole of the Z axis from travel whereas the Compucut relies on driving quill thru it's original rack and pinion system which was never renown for accuracy. Compucut also ignore this extended travel saying "The location of the vertical leadscrew BEHIND the column where it will always tend to jam the dovetail when moved" when in fact they offer nothing to support this.

You have to read up, study what others have done and make a choice from that but nothing stays still in this game for long.

.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

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Reply to
John Stevenson

Thanks guys, I had read both excellent write ups, trouble is the last electronics I did was a ZX80 kit and that didn't work till the radio ham over the road found all the dry joints, this exercise has just demonstrated to me what I don't know! I wondered about that Compucut assertion regards the X1 column feed, doubt my chances of lucking on cheap ballscrews though - nice one Alan. How good can backlash compensation in software get? I can get my x/y down to a couple of thou but it's getting harder to turn by then, serious steppers needed!

More reading required when all I really want to do is make swarf!

Reply to
Andy Parker

Andy -

Software backlash comp is if limited use on a mill - it can help in some circumstances but not all (tracing circular paths is generally the pathological case). Having said that, you can do quite a lot with a machine that has (only) a couple of thou backlash.

Regards, Tony

Reply to
Tony Jeffree

It's also fairly easy with some ingenuity to minimise it without adding too much friction.

Make an additional nut from Delrin or similar and Belleville washers or other strong springs to preload it against the original nut.

Wayne...

Reply to
Wayne Weedon

I CNC'd my X1 with a motor mount kit form CNCfusion (exchange rates help a lot at the moment) and a controller box from

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. I also converted it to belt drive with a kit from
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and I'm just getting a rapid changer from
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I had zero experience with CNC other than this so I really needed plug'n'play, I wanted to make stuff, not have a project mill. It works well at what I want it to do, repeat jobs all day once or twice a month, but it needs some tweeking to get it better, mainly I think the mechanics of the mill, such as the poorly fitted gib strips, and the backlash in the Z, as well as couterbalancing the Z. Ballscrews would be a huge improvement, but gettign them small enough and modifying to make them fit could be a pain (except perhaps on the Z)

There is a Yahoo group dedicated to CNC conversion of the X1 mill, (also known in the US as the HF47158),

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where you will find more help on quite an active list.

Stu G

Reply to
stooby-doo

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