Xylotex driven, 269 oz steppers.  Home made thrust bearing and Flex couplers.  More problems you could shat a stick at!  Rapids with old 114 oz steppers was a absolute max of 15 ipm..... but lost steps.  Now im at a stable 20 ipm rappids and cut my wax and plastics at full speed.  Simple custom 4th axis that I was told wouldnt work to well  but it does nicley.
Alot of thanks to ART,Steve, and countless others for their patience and input... hey we all gotta learn.
Machine and some work can be seen here.......  Back when I was running Turbocnc.  Now its mach 3 all the way.

http://s82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/fixittt/MAXNC/

Some jewlery and simple 4th axis
http://s82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/fixittt/Jewlery%20Designs/

Youve got some great pictures over there in photo bucket.

I try to take alot of clear pictures in hopes that anyone in my same situation  will understand more of what can be done to and with these cheap (I use the term in describing the quailty of the MAXNC machine).

They can be made to preform alot better then stock.

I hated the machine for the longest time,  almost Ebayed it a few times... but its starting to come together and I am having a blast finally producing with it.

updated pics

Dampeners installed....
Switch on Z column seeing as I dont have software control of the spindle  I send the Z axis up at the end of the G code and the arm switches off the spindle  So I can leave it running all night.
Tube to motor supplies it with fresh air from outside the enclosure.

Great looking work!


I need to start playing with code like that

You guys get to do all the cool stuff and I am stuck making simple programs

But Brian, if it wasnt for YOUR code... I couldnt do MINE!!!!   SO THANK YOU and ART too!!!!

Great looking work!


I need to start playing with code like that

You guys get to do all the cool stuff and I am stuck making simple programs

Something I might add about my machine.
Everything after market on my machine is home made.  From the 4th axis, to the tooling plate, to the vise,  the motor mount is dove tailed.  The thrust bearing adapter plates on the Y axis,  the dampeners 

I very much like what you have done with your machine,  it looks great.  I would be very interested in seeing some more pictures of the 4th axis or details on how you have put it together,  this seems like a very elegant design.
Warren.

The 4th axis is really simple. I made a 90 degree L bracket out of a solid block.  Machined the center hole and drilled and tapped the 4 mounting bolt holes.  Mounted a stepper motor right up to the L bracket.  Then on the lathe.  I made an arbor that was a press fit onto the stepper motors shaft.  Seeing as I mostly do rings.  I made a step on the end og the arbor  that fits the wax tubes ID.  Drilled and tapped a hole in the center of the arbor and on the other end of the wax that I put on it.  I have a spud and a bolt runs thru the center of the wax tube and it tightens it all down so the wax wont move while machining.  Draw backs to this is resolution.  I have a 1 to 1 ratio.  But for now it works great!

I did try taking an import rotary table and converting it to cnc.  A few problems arose with this.  Once I had the 3 jaw chuck ect on it it was WAY to heavy got my little mill.
The second problem was that I was getting HUGE amounts of runout!  I mean ALOT.  I pulled the rotary table apart and found how cheap these things really are.  Only one bearing holing it all together.  And that was the rear bearing.  I lathed out a bronze bushing for the front of the rotary  to try and tighten things up.  But to no avail.  So it got put aside.

finally got the chinese rotary table to work right and made some fixture reciever and ring arbor for machining wax tubes.
The rotary table is cheap.... there is no support on the inside near the front of the table.  I has to turn a step into the housing and make a brass bearing that press fit onto the face and sat in the step.  This cured ALOT of the run out issues.

I needed some sort on interchangeable fixture setup as I am doing alot more flip jobs ect.  The stepper motor for a 4th axis worked but the resolution was not so great and the slop in the motor itself made of setup issues.   The idea behind this setup is to have a receiver bolted to the face of the rotary.  This has a .998 in bore.  My fixtures will be made to simply slide into this bore and lock in with setscrews.  Well you get the idea from the pics.