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CNC G0704/BF20, LinuxCNC, Mesa Cards


kevinj308

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This is really just an extension of StraightUpOg's thread. I had never heard of a hobby level CNC before reading his write up.

Thanks to him, Jared, Warren, Daniel, Peter and many others for contributing so much.

I converted a Grizzly G0704 to CNC with the following components.

Hopefully helps somebody if they're looking to do this sort of thing, I'm having a blast!!! I'd strongly recommend checking out Cnczone.com for all things 0704 related. Tons of beautiful builds on that site.

I went with LinuxCNC, again thanks to straightupog, because it was free and I had read too many horror stories about Mach3, so far it's been good to me. Can't recommend enough the Mesa control hardware. I think there must be some high level collaboration between Mesa and LinuxCNC, it just works really well together. FWIW I'm not a computer geek really, it was actually pretty easy to put together on the electronic side of things.

Bear in mind that these are imported machines and their quality can vary quite a bit. I consider myself pretty lucky with the one I got, you're gonna have to do some work to them no matter what. At least some lapping, maybe a lot more.

I would really recommend that this sort of project be viewed as a hobby in itself. If you have a part or design already and you just want to get to making it then buy a tormach. It took me a year of weekends to get this done, including all the research.

So here's all the big pieces with links that are current at this time, I didn't add up the prices. Please don't tell me if you do! And definitely don't let my wife know. This combination of components is working very well for me so far.

Grizzly G0704

http://www.grizzlyindustrial.com/products/Drill-Mill-with-Stand/G0704

Hoss cnc plans

http://www.g0704.com/dvdrom_super_combo_download.html

LInuxCNC 2.6.5 Debian Wheezy

Ball screws and nuts from linearmotionbearings2008 on ebay, got the double nut C7 set up. Dimensions from Hoss plans. Add 75mm to the y and z screws to make room for the double nut. You can always cut the end off if it’s too much.

Bearings from VXB.com. Hoss calls out all the part numbers for you on his plans.

Sabrent 12 button usb 2.0 game pad. Easy to set up as a pendant in pncconf with the mesa cards.

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AEWTSWU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

PNP inductive proximity switches 10-30VDC, quantity 3. Home switches for x,y, and z

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B009PMHLTM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Samsung 840 EVO 120gb SSD

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E3W15P0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

NZXT Technoligies Source 530 Full tower case

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FUC6S5O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Corsair CX 600watt power supply CX600M

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ALYOPSS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Crucial 2gb RAM, quantiy 2

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B006YG88QC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Asrock E350 M1 mini ITX mother board http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B004KABOZG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Mesa Electronics 7I76-6I25 Plug-n-go kit

http://store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=217

Nema23 motor 156oz for rotary table

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/nema-23/nema-23-bipolar-stepper-motor-156-oz-in-%C2%BC%E2%80%9D-dual-shaft-with-a-flat

Nema23 motor 570oz for x and y

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/nema-23/nema-23-three_eighths-inch-dual-shaft-with-a-flat-570-oz-in

Nema34 motor 906oz for z, wish I had gotten the 1200oz

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/nema-34/nema34-stepper-motor-%E2%80%93-906-oz-in-6-1a-single-shaft-kl34h295-43-8b

48VDC 13A linear power supply

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/torroidal-power-supplies/unregulated-625w-48vdc13a-input-120vac-or-230vac

KL5056D drivers for x,y, and rotary table

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/digital-stepper-motor-driver/digital-stepper-driver-kl-5056d-heat-sink-is-included

KL8070D driver for z

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/digital-stepper-motor-driver/digital-stepper-driver-kl-8070d-heat-sink-is-included

Worth noting that these are working great as part of the lube system. Can’t remeber what thread I found them on CNCzone.com but they’re very nice. They take a couple psi to open so the lines don’t drain. I used the #3 on the ways and #2 on the ball nuts.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#2293k12/=vigc4u

Rotary table from Sherline

https://www.sherlinedirect.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=127&CFID=43795423&CFTOKEN=34209478

Bijur style pump from ebay.

TTS style tooling from ebay, bsello168 is the vendor. Very happy with the holders. Big thread on CNCzone about them, lots of good reviews.

I put the power supply and drivers together like this and they fit in the case perfect. I added some fans to the front of the case and they blow across the heat sinks, been working well.
th_02B37057-6521-4810-A608-DE2764938B1C.

th_C2F60867-70C5-41FD-9DD2-08B6C2F37AFE.

th_C267D3AB-5435-49E8-87C4-C2B00429656C.

Assembled case with power supply and drivers.

th_31BDCE46-B786-4A7A-B57F-496F5449B9E0.


I cut out a piece of the case at the back and made a plate with all the motor connections.

th_4FCB22AB-74F8-46E6-ABF0-0F994868E5D1.

th_B99132B8-42EF-4091-AFFD-3C5B91946645.

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The only thing that worries me about this machine now is the having to make the belt drive upgrade myself. I wish I could afford the larger machine at this point

Do you mean leaving it as a manual machine and just doing the belt drive upgrade?

You need to replace the spindle bearings, that's really not that bad. I can walk you through that. Any rpm increase is gonna need better bearings though

With new bearings how about just doing the gear swap that I linked on OG's thread? That's a really straight forward upgrade that gets 4700 rpm. I might do that myself, Im still running the stock set up at 2300rpm.

http://www.g0704.com/projects.html

If you're gonna go cnc then the belt drive is the least of your worries.

I wish I could afford a larger machine too!!!!!! I think even the pro's do.

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A belt drive is so much quieter than a gear drive, especially at high rpm. Based on past experience I would go with the belt. The bearing will be a little harder to do, but both are probably fairly easy. Most of the hardness in the beginning is simply the uncertainty of what you are getting into. The belt upgrade probably is only removing gears and replacing with pulleys. I have rebuilt several Bridgeport heads and other parts. Most times it's not as hard as you would think it will be.

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On the motor side it's just a swap, the stock motor has a 10mm shaft, keyed.

You need to make an adapter plate of some kind to allow the motor to slide and tighten the belt.

On the spindle side it's a splined shaft. Everyone I've seen is a pulley bored out to fit over the splines then set screws added in the sides to engage the splines. Usually 3 screws.

That's it, plus the better bearings.

Do some reading on cnczone and you'll find plenty of pics.

The gears are noisy. Even at 2300 I wear hearing protection. Mostly just because it's annoying over a long period of time.

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The bearings aren't that bad, I didn't think anyway. I'll post some pics of the spanner wrenches I made when I get home.

All I did was take a couple of big harbor freight wrenches I already had and drilled them out for machine screws. The wrench fit around the spindle shaft and the screws engaged the holes in the big nut.

Any piece of metal would work.

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The bearings aren't that bad, I didn't think anyway. I'll post some pics of the spanner wrenches I made when I get home.

All I did was take a couple of big harbor freight wrenches I already had and drilled them out for machine screws. The wrench fit around the spindle shaft and the screws engaged the holes in the big nut.

Any piece of metal would work.

A little late, but here's the wrenches I used to make spindle bearing spanners. An 1 1/8 and an 1 3/4 drilled out for machine screws. I didn't even the thread the holes, just dropped screws through them and turned the nuts. Worked great.

post-13722-0-65973700-1422718027_thumb.j

post-13722-0-28371100-1422718051_thumb.j

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Got some flood coolant going, so much nicer than listening to an air compressor run for the mister I had made.

http://instagram.com/p/yfsGBPuCAJ/

Already had this pump, worked really well. I did plumb it though a 1/4" ball valve to throttle the discharge. The pump is probably a little large for the application.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000X05G1A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1#

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Does the flood coolant recirculate or no?

Yeah it does. I've just got the pump sitting in a five gallon bucket and the return hose going back into the bucket. For the drain I used a sink drain from Home Depot and some 1 1/2" pool and sauna hose. I don't have a pool, but it's just corrugated plastic hose. It slips over the pvc drain and goes through a hole I cut into the bucket lid.

FWIW I got a ton of chips in the bucket after a long job. It was enough that it actually clogged up the suction of the pump. I think I"m going to get a larger plastic container for the coolant reservoir and have the drain line dump into a small bucket in that. Something to collect the chips.

Overall I'm very happy though, the pump just kept going after I cleared the screen at the bottom.

Edited by kevinj308
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It's my understanding that the belt drive has to be made by you and not available like it was for my HF mini mill which I added to it. The lack of RPM makes me uncertain of the machine

I ordered some pulleys and a belt to make a belt drive. Was about $60 shipped from sdp-si.com. I've got to make some brackets too to give me some way to tighten the belt. When I get it all worked out I'll post some pics, part numbers and drawings of the brackets. Might take me a couple of months to get too depending on the rest of life :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Made a plate to mount my new Sherline rotary table to a angle plate. 1/2" aluminum, 10-32 screws to the table and 3/8-16 to the angle plate. Made a 1/2" tab to help line it up in the table slot, figure if it gets in the way I'll just take it off.

Now I need a tailstock, grizzly has one that looks good. The Sherline tailstock just looks flimsy.

post-13722-0-64023500-1425776590_thumb.j

post-13722-0-62334000-1425776600_thumb.j

post-13722-0-25347900-1425776609_thumb.j

post-13722-0-40118800-1425776617_thumb.j

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That's awesome! I can't wait to see what you do with it. Barrel fluting the first project?

figuring out how to make CAM do cool stuff with it is my first project lol.

I have a feeling that's gonna be a steep curve, but that's a lot of the fun of all this for me.

I've got a couple other things on my plate. Still gotta finish the belt drive, want to make a knife. yadda yadda yadda. Always something cool to do!

Need to save my pennies for a 4 jaw chuck for the rotary and a tailstock. That's next on the budget list.

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