Hello Gents,

I've been doing a lot of searching and reading here on this site. I've had an RF-31 round column mill in storage for a long time and finally have a place to put it after moving around a bit between places. I'm planning a CNC conversion starting with the X&Y first and then moving along to the Z. In a perfect world I would have known more 10 years ago when I got the RF-31 and instead purchased an RF-45. However, I think this mill will be suitable for my needs as I'll be using it to build fixtures for bicycle frames. All of the parts will have limited z-axis movement as they are pretty small. I figure I'll learn the ropes getting this mill converted and optimized then moving along to an RF-45 should I feel the need and sell the 31.

I'm planning to document the conversion in detail and also offer up any of the CAD files and/or plans to the public under the free GNU license. Hopefully the information will be useful for future people doing the conversion. This will be my first CNC conversion so documenting it will likely help me the most since I'll be able to find my details for the next machine!

In the mean time I'm curious to start the build with the following bits from Keling. They look like a good source of hardware from what I have read here. I want to do a direct drive of the screws from the motor to keep it simple. I thought about a belt drive from the motor to the ball screw but it seems a little elaborate for a 1st conversion.

Here are the parts from Keling I'm considering

(3) 570 oz-in stepping motors, NEMA 23
(3) KL-5056 Drivers (5.6Amp 24-50 Volts, 1-1/256 microstepping)
(1) 48VDC /12 .5A Power Supply 110VAC/220VAC
(1) C10 Breakout board
(1) 5V power supply

I'm also looking to get some ball screws from linearmotion2008 on eBay or from McMaster. McMaster has a warehouse local to me here in LA which is great for a quick will call pickup. I have a 12x36 lathe to machine the ends. The ball screw is one of the areas where I need to do more research as I haven't worked with them in the past. Does anybody have good recommendations for ball screws and/or the nut specifically?

Any feedback on this would be appreciated, let me know what you would or have already done!