[Kickin Wing]

Hello everyone I'm new here and also a total CNC newbie and I have a question or two. Ok my boss wants to convert our x2 mini mill to CNC so I've been researching some of the kits out there and I've narrowed it down to the CNC Fusion kit or the Stirling Steele kit. We really liked the Steele kit because it allows you to keep the hand wheels in order to still use it manually. But then I came across this post on the CNC Fusion forum.

"One good reason not to put handwheels on your mill, is the stepper motors act like mini DC generators when you spin the shafts. (try wetting your finger, and hold the lead wires while spinning the motor shaft. ZAP) That current will back-feed into your drivers, and I can’t imagine that can result in anything good. Yes, you can disconnect them every time you want to use the mill manually.....

Also, the ballscrews turn so freely, they the table will not stay in position as with the stock leadscrews, unless you use the gib locks for every cut, which would be a pain.

So it is technically possible to use dual shaft with handwheels on the shafts, but we do not support or recommend doing it."

Has anyone out there run into any problems blowing up or damaging the motor drivers when using the hand wheels? Also has anyone had problems with the table not staying in position while having the hand wheels still attached as we plan on converting over to ball screws due to the large amount of backlash we are getting with the normal lead screws?

[AiR_GuNNeR]

I doubt you would be able to keep the head from slipping down while machining. I had the same concerns about not being able to use it manually, but never missed it once I converted my LMS Hitorque mill. I used the fusion kit.

[Rescue35]

My CNC Fusion kit arrives today and after much research and dabbling with other cnc machines I will not be using this machine manually. In fact I bought the LMS mill for the sole purpose of being a dedicated cnc mill. I still have my RF-35 for anything I wish to do manually.

If you needed to you could run a macro in Mach3 or use a pendant to drive the mill under power without running a program if you need to mill something "Manually".

[Kickin Wing]

I have no problem using a pendent for the manual control but for some reason or another my boss is against it.

[mhackney]

You can use the keyboard with Mach too. I did that to "manually" mill for quite a while before getting a pendant. After you've cranked a manual mill a few 100 times you'll appreciate the "power feed" option of a CNCd mill.

I used the CNCFusion kit and it has been a workhorse. Good stuff.

Cheers
Michael