Quote:
Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII
We did the same thing last year. We used the CNC upgrade kit to retrofit a mill from Industrial Hobbies. Its a great mill and I would recommend it to anyone.
But I would NOT, under any circumstances, ever, recommend that anyone try and upgrade the mill themselves. Both the mechanical and electrical challenges we faced were extremely daunting, and we lost much of the accuracy the tool would have had had we left it in its original condition.
My father and an electrical technician (who mentors our team) spent all summer wiring the speed controllers and getting it running. Along the way we fried many components and broke a lot of stuff - not because we were incompetent, but because there was very little documentation on the process.
Add to that the fact that Industrial Hobbies changed hands and most of the technical assistance was temporarily lost
If you do chose to buy an Industrial Hobbies machine, buy one that is already built for CNC.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII
It wasn't that the CNC was bad it was that it was VERY difficult to install, and there was almost no instructions or info on how to do it. We would definitely go with the CNC again - we just wouldn't install it ourselves... (IH gives you the choice to buy it assembled or DIY)
The CNC retrofit replaces the big handles with itty-bitty ones that make manual milling very difficult. I worried that total CNC control would be difficult, but once I got used to it, it was supper easy. There's really no need for manual control with a computer hooked up 
The IH mills are just cheap Chinese mills. They use ACME screws and are not ultra precision. Retrofitting the mill requires replacing the ACME screws with precision ball-screws, which are super accurate. This process is VERY difficult, but when done right it will transform the tool into a high quality machine.
Out of the box everything was smooth and nice. But of course, we had to take it apart to install the new screws - which required re-adjusting it... |
You seem to have had a much more difficult time with the CNC upgrade installation on the I.H. mill than we have been having. The manual is certainly not the most complete document that I have ever used. However, if you study it carefully (more on this in a moment), you can figure out most of the installation process. Where there were any questions, the folks at I.H. were very helpful and always seemed happy to talk with us on the phone and walk through any steps that were problematic. We were doing the installation right in the middle of the I.H. transition to new ownership, which I would have normally expected to cause a lot of problems. But they were still very responsive and able to get us all the answers we needed.
In our case, the ball screw installation was an operation that required some attention to detail, but it was nothing outrageous. With a little care and planning, one person was able to assemble each ball screw and install it in about an hour.
To do the CNC installation, you do have to completely disassemble the machine. And I do mean
completely disassemble it -
everything comes apart. You have to strip it down to the base castings. Most of the individual parts can be handled by one person. But you will definitely want at least two people to drop the Z-axis tower and move the X-Y table. A small hoist would be very helpful here if you have one, and is recommended. But if you don't have one handy, these parts can be persuaded to move where you want them to if you are very careful and don't try to rush the job (we used two "old guys" on the team, who managed to move the parts without spraining anything
). One lesson learned - as you disassemble the machine, take pictures of each step and each part you remove. These will be invaluable resources later as you put everything back together and are trying to remember exactly where those little copper shims went...
The only item that was an issue for us was that when you disassemble the I.H. mill for the CNC installation, you need to send the Z-axis carrier plate and clevis back to I.H. for some machining. We didn't read the manual as carefully as we thought the first time through (which was completely our fault) and did not realize this until we were half way through the CNC installation. We had to pause the installation process for several weeks while the parts were sent in and modified by I.H. Had we been paying attention up front, we could have avoided this delay in the installation.
I am not sure that I would volunteer to do it this way again - as noted, you can purchase the CNC upgrade pre-installed by I.H. and that may be the way to go for a lot of people. Our installation did take a while an required a lot of effort that might otherwise have gone into machining parts. But there is one irrefutable benefit that came from doing the installation ourselves - we now know that machine inside and out, and any problems that crop up are much, much easier to diagnose and repair than they would be otherwise.
-dave