Clarke milling machine CNC conversion CMD1225D

**Jonathan** · 27-09-2013

I've assembled the X-axis now:

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Unfortunately I'm still waiting for the pulleys to arrive, so I've temporarily put some spare XL pulleys I had lying around on it. Since using the pulleys I had means the bigger pulley had to go on the motor, it's currently 30:14 ratio so it'll currently go silly fast - over 10m/min!

Oddly there's still 0.02mm (0.0008") of backlash... not sure what's causing it yet, I'm hoping it's just the pulleys so I'll look into it further when I've got the new ones.

**natec** · 30-04-2017

I know this is an old thread but I was just given one of these and thinking about converting it mostly for machining aluminum. Do you still have the machine? Any thoughts about it?

**Jonathan** · 04-05-2017

I still use it most weekends. It's a surprisingly good machine for the size, I think due to having substantial bed slides then for example an X3. If you're looking for a machine to fit on a workbench, I'd certainly recommend it.

Here it is milling a keyway in a titanium shaft:

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About the only change I've made to the machine recently is to add a spacer block of steel under the column, to drill the end of this shaft:

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Some general milling of aluminium:

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**natec** · 04-05-2017

Thanks, I'm definitely going ahead with it. What kind of feeds and speeds are you running for aluminum? Looks like you're taking a pretty healthy cut in the last photo.

**Jonathan** · 07-05-2017

Originally Posted by natec

Thanks, I'm definitely going ahead with it. What kind of feeds and speeds are you running for aluminum? Looks like you're taking a pretty healthy cut in the last photo.

From memory, 2150rpm (spindle max), 5-6mm DOC, 400-600mm/min with a 4fl HSS-co roughing endmill in the last photo. That's a bit of an exception though - standard, not roughing, endmills are quite a lot slower.

**SimonCNC** · 06-02-2019

Hi

This looks awesome, i have a CMD1225 now and am thinking of doing the same, what did you do with regards to the Z axis?

The Y and X look quite straight forward, but the Z is puzzling me on what to do with regards CNC, with the setup that comes out of the factiory it looks like there is loads of backlash on mine.

thank you in advance.

Kind regards

Simon