King Midas mill conversion

[Jonathan]

£300 on ballnuts! Are you sure you can't get the cheap RM1605 ballnuts from china to fit as they're $25 each from eBay. Surely you can at least use the cheaper ones for Z?

Pulleys - the tooth profile of HTD pulleys is much better suited to this application than T5 and similar price, so get pulleys and belts from here:

http://www.bearingstation.co.uk/prod...HTD_Pulley_5mm

Most (if not all?) the 3Nm motors have dual shafts, so unless the rear shaft is going to get in the way you can just get 3 of the motors you linked to at Zapp.

I've got lots of 4-core CY, 1.5mm^2 cable for the motors...yours for £1.20 (I think, will check) per meter.

Making the handwheels can be the second project on the machine after cutting the motor mounts! I could make the piece that attaches the handwheel to the screw (18), wont cost much.

The power supply you've linked to is probably sufficient, but more power would be better. It's cheaper to make your own using a transformer like 88-3839 from Rapid Electronics. Just -earch on google for making a power supply with a toroidal transformer. There's not much to it - you just need the transformer above, bridge rectifier and capacitors. Let me know if that's not enough information and I'll explain better.

Have you considered in the Z-axis screw mount how to temporarily disengage it from the spindle when changing tools so that the force from hammering on the draw-bolt to release the tool taper isn't transferred to the relatively delicate ballscrew/ballnut?

Cheapest e-stop switch I can find is here:

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Distribution_and_Switchgear_Index/Emergency_Stop_Buttons/index.html

One day I'll get round to buying one...