Retired engineer in Colorado

**bbutcher85** · Dec 23, 2015, 08:40 AM

Hi all,
I am a retired electrical engineer with years of experience using shop tools, mills, lathes, etc. I live near Longmont Colorado, and own a Bridgeport 9 X 42 knee mill that I converted to 3 axis CNC. I did upgrade to ballscrews, and am using servo motors to drive all three axes. My controller is a Galil DMC-1850 interfaced to Mach3 on a Windows 2000 PC. Yes the PC is old and antique, but it has an ISA slot that I need for the Galil card. The BIOS on the computer is so old it will not allow me to upgrade to even Windows XP! I also have an old Atlas 10 lathe with a 36 inch bed, as well as other common shop tools, welders, and plasma cutter.
I am in the process of building a CNC lathe right now. I plan to start with an Atlas 10/12 bed 42 inch total length since I happen to have one on hand. I plan to build my own spindle with a 1.5 inch through hole so I can use 5C collets. I plan to mount the spindle 6 inches above the bed for a 12 inch diameter capacity. My spindle will use a D4 Camlock nose and Timken bearings to provide good thrust capability. I am planning to use Rulon lined ways for low friction and ease of rebuild if ever needed. For my cross slide I plan to use linear slides, probably Rulon lined as well. Since this will be CNC I will not require a compound. I plan to use a 1 HP DC motor to drive the spindle. I plan to use Mach 3 to drive the ballscrews, but have not decided between stepper motors and servo motors just yet.
I plan to look around at what others have done and get more ideas before I cut metal.

Bob

**Jon** · Dec 23, 2015, 10:09 AM

Hi Bob - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

Sounds like you are having fun with that build! Any other CNC builds you have seen on this site that gave you ideas?

**kbalch** · Dec 23, 2015, 01:43 PM

Hi Bob,

Welcome!

Sounds like some impressive work in modifying the Bridgeport to CNC. We've got quite a few guys around here working at CNC in various ways who'd be interested in peering over your shoulder, so to speak. Post some pics if you have them.

Ken