DIY CNC machine for steel?

[lucan07]

The siegs from Acer etc are quite simple to convert from experience spent one day on my X1 to get it up and running from scratch, now tidying and tuning everything. The X1 is only 250w but have already cut myself some steel T nuts with a carbide bit and some patience. Cost of my unit £580 for mill and £80 BOB and motors although had a few 3d printer parts laying around shop around and have a look if you can.

[lukeleb2010]

Thanks for the support guys.

Obviously i'll need to upgrade the drive screws for the 3 axes.

Ballscrews are a popular opinion but i came across these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LOW-COST-3...kAAMXQVT9SsE~4

Super cheap in comparison with ballscrews and claim to have a very similar effect.

Does anyone have any experience with anti backlash nuts. Is it worth the risk or are ballscrews THAT much better?

Who are a good supplier of well priced ballscrews in the UK?

Cheers,

Luke

[Neale]

Interesting, but personally I wouldn't touch them for a mill conversion. I'm using something similar (although home-built) on my current CNC router. They've been working reasonably well, but only because the router is an MDF structure that can't manage anything like reasonable speeds or cuts. For a mill - no way! There's a reason why people say "use ballscrews"..

[Davek0974]

To get ballscrews, look to China if you are price conscious, guy called BST Automation on Aliexpress site, will have all you need, is very helpful and prices, well, I just bought all the motion - linear rails, carriages, ballscrews, nuts, brackets etc for my mini CNC build for the price of a couple of screws alone from a UK supplier.

I usually shop UK but I could not have done this build if I had.