King Midas mill conversion

[diy-john]

It has been quiet lately, while waiting bits to arrive. Status update:

- Jonathan now has the ballscrews.
-- Screws are R 1605 -type. They are un-machined, and only roughly cut to length
--- 900 mm screw will be cut to ---> 853 mm (X-axis)
--- 600 mm screw will be cut to ---> 508 mm (Y-axis)
--- 300 mm screw will be cut to ---> 259 mm (Z-axis)

Jonathan will have a look at the screws, and lets see what can be done to them.

Motors, drivers and other bits were dispatched on Wednesday 28.03. Now they are in Germany, latest status on EXPD -site:

30/03/2012

11:43

IN TRANSIT - DEPARTURE SCAN - LANGENHAGEN, GERMANY

Meanwhile, thought time will pass more quickly, if one would do something, instead of constantly checking where the parcel is.

1) Downloaded today Ubuntu / linuxcnc from:
http://www.linuxcnc.org/docs/2.5/htm...tting_EMC.html

2) Burned on a blank CD ubuntu-10.04-linuxcnc1-i386.iso from
http://dsplabs.upt.ro/~juve/emc/

2.1) For burning used my linux laptop: (commands given on command-prompt, screen output on violet)
- though could use Windows, or whatever software you have. One just likes linux, so that it will be.
cdrecord -scanbus
scsibus1:
1,0,0 100) 'MATSHITA' 'DVD-RAM UJ890AS ' '1.00' Removable CD-ROM
1,1,0 101) *
1,2,0 102) *
1,3,0 103) *
1,4,0 104) *
1,5,0 105) *
1,6,0 106) *
1,7,0 107) *
cdrecord -v dev=1,0,0 ubuntu-10.04-linuxcnc1-i386.iso

3) Found a dusty old PC, with a parallel port, it is an 800mhz pentium processor -pc
- vacuum cleaned the inside a bit (it was really dusty)


3.1) Attached an old 160Gb maxtor -drive into it (to be used for the Ubuntu-linux installation)
- there are some DIY-cabling inside this old PC. She used to have a lot of hard-drives inside it, so the extra cabling is because of that. Not needed for this project.


3.2) Going to boot the computer with this freshly burned Ubuntu (linuxcnc) -bootable CD:


3.3) Almost ready to boot now


3.4) On bootup newly added hardware shows


3.5) Installation process begins and there are some easy-to-answer questions


3.6) Installation took perhaps 30-40 minutes. Once installation is finished, installation says to remove the CD from drive, and press enter for a reboot
3.7) On starting up the Ubuntu first time, noticed there are indeed CNC -related software there, EMC2 for example



Okay this is how far we got now. Did not try the software more. Next steps would be:
- postman brings the Nema 23-motors, drivers etc.
- We buy some cable and sundries, try to connect them to the old PC.
- try to make the motors turn with the computer. (can't wait for this to happen )