RICH'S ATLAS CNC CONVERSION

[RICH]

This is a 38 year old Atlas Clausing Vertical Mill which I rebuilt and converted to CNC 4 years ago.
Six speed ranges / 24"x 6" table / 15" x 5.25"  cross travel / MT 2 taper in spindle.
The guard is removed to show stepper mounting. A handle extension was made for the quick feed
( in-out to engage fine feed) and a 85 in oz stepper was mounted directly to the fine feed, thus total manual
operation is still available. Motor side of the x and y axis have double contact bearings in the bearing blocks
with a single contact bearing in the other bearing block. Nuts at handle ends provide for preloading adjustment of the bearings.
200 in oz Superior Electric steppers on the X and y axis. Three axis digital display along with an indicator for quill movement. Not much room for the ball nut as shown by the picture. Ball screws 16mm -5mm lead with adjustable ball nut by Techno Inc. A 1 HP DC motor with variable speed controller still waites for me to installation.
Overall dim of 36"x 40" x 70" provide for a nice homeshop mill.

[Chaoticone]

Nice Rich, Good job.

Brett

[Overloaded]

I TOTALLY agree....Excellent Work.
Thanks RICH,
RC

[budman68]

Very cool, Rich, thanks for sharing the pics - 

[RICH]

Pic of the mill head modified such that the quill movement is done with a ball screw. Need to make a cover and reduce the 0.001" backlash.
RICH

[RICH]

The mill served me well until I got into 3D miling and it just would not do the job.
So improvements to the mill were required.
I reworked the  the X and Y bearing holders and installed new and better bearings, upgraded the stepper motors,  and per
the last reply modified the head to use a ball screw to drive the Z axis.

What a difference to have no backlash and all the axis can  now can do 80 ipm reliably.

I attached the old adapter plate for the high speed spindle  and tested her out....machine worked  like a charm.

RICH

[Promech]

Rich, how fast can that high speed spindle go?

[RICH]

The one pictured is 18000 rpm / 1/4 hp.  The Dumore  is 12000 rpm under load and also 1/4 hp. Have others that are air driven that go to 60,000 rpm.
The spindle holder gets up to around 105 F so maybe the spindle is around 110 to 115F after an hour of use.
May need to make a water cooling jacket or add air blowing on it since it will get somewhat warmer when cutting SS.

RICH

[handsmfg]

Rich

Beautiful machine. You should be proud.

Eric

[BluePinnacle]

Very useful and very flexible, and saves writing programs for odd jobs if you can still use the old handles. Well done