Hi,

I have finally scrounged enough cash together to invest in a small mill, and the X3 seems to fit my requirements. I dont plan to run the mill manually, so will be doing a cnc conversion reasonably quickly.

As i was originally planning to build a mill from scratch, i have some bits i have already scrounged. One thing would be a set of thk precision actuators (KR33) with 10mm dia 10mm pitch ground ballscrews, some bldc motors, and matching drives.

My question is can i get away with using the kr33 actuators to drive the mill? they are only 10mm dia screws, and all the kits i have seen seem to use 15mm min. Rated dynamic load on the ballscrew i have is 1760N. Ballscrew precision specs are:
Positioning accuracy reproducibility: +-0.003mm
positioning 0.020mm
Running parallelism 0.010mm
backlash: 0.003 mm

If they are appropriate, does anyone have any idea how to mount such actuators to an x3? I am sure i have seen an x3 conversion with these before, but cant remember where. I assume i will need a perfectly flat section to bolt the rail section to, and it wont fit where the leadscrew is already.

I could just get a kit, but it seems a waste to not use the ground ballscrews if i can get away with them. That said im sure the kr33s would fetch some cash on ebay.

Also with regard to enclosing the mill, has anyone here used 8020 to create a workbench for one of these? Are vibrations a big problem with this mill?

One other thing. is it worth paying 1/3 extra to have the manufacturer prepare the mill? On the one hand im new to this, so it might be useful, but i will be taking it apart pretty quickly to do the cnc conversion. Is there anything particularly tricky in preparing this mill?