Hi, y'all I'm Bobby Neal. I am fairly new to machining parts. I started out two yrs. ago with a 13 1/2" x 40" Grizzly Lathe and a 9 1/2" x 39" manual mill with x axis auto feed. It didn't take me long to figure out that I didn't like standing behind that mill for hours to make a relatively simple part. So I started searching for used cnc mills. I hit pay dirt! I found Bridgeport R2E3 Ridgid head mill with Boss 8 controls, running in a shop, that the guy needed to sell to buy material to fill an order. I gave him $1,000 for the machine and about a dozen tool holders and carted it home. The old controls worked but I had no idea how to use them and at that time knew nothing of cnc controls in general. Hours of online research later I decided to buy new controls and sell of the old ones to pay for it. I went with Ajaxcnc. I kept the 3 phase spindle motor, and dc power supply and the dc servos. The MPU11/DC3IO Kit is what i bought and I also bought their advised 2000 line encoders. The install was fairly straight forward and went off without a hitch. So as far as AJAXCNC KITS are concerned their very good. BUT!!! The support of their equipment is about as lousy as I've ever seen. I will definatly seek another system for my next retro. I like their equipment but hell good equipment without technical support is nearly useless for most. All I can say is thank goodness for a large community of like minded individualls to lend an ear. I also built my own rotary phase converter to run the mill. I have a copy of Solidworks and Solidcam and their super programs and very easy to use.

Hi Everyone!  I have been using a CNC for a while now, at the company I work for.  Thought it would be interesting to come here and chat with others.    I am using Mach 3 with BobCad v21.   Interesting, being the only female working in an all male environment. 

 Anyhow........    I have been reading the posts for a while, just never joined in.

Welcome Lulu,

It is nice to see another female interested in CNC stuff. I am an inlay artist who is experimenting with using a CNC mill as a mechanism to make my art repeatable. I began my career in the manufacturing arena and was often the only gal in the shop. Even worked as a machinist for a machine buiding shop many years ago.

Jen

hi Lulu, I`m a newbe to all this with a ez router plasma table (apc), loaded with mach3 version R3.00, BobCAD-CAM, Cut 2D, along with others.  hopefully someone out there can help me with working the bugs out, trying to get a retirement small gig going, like working with metals.

Hey guys I just got my Fireball v90 and am excited to get into cnc. I'll be posting some questions soon as I have no clue what I need to do to get setup. I feel I may be the newest to cnc then anyone after searching through, wish me luck!

Hey All

I just got threw doing a retro fit on a Anilam CNC knee mill using DMM Technology's 4 axis high torque kit.  A few years ago I made a CNC plasma table and used a Dynatorch retro kit with it.  It came with all the cables and everything.  Prior to that I knew nothing about CNC.  So in short I'm a green horn that love learning stuff.
Mach3 seems to have some things I really need to learn.  And this seems to be the place to do it.

My 1st subject will be will be " radom loss of positon" a clitch I get on long runs where x servo seems to freeze for a 1/4 of a second then continue this results in the loss of my zero location equal to the distance it stalled.   I don't know where to post it

Steve

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum.

Post your problem, with as much detail as possible under the General Discussion section where it will receive the most coverage. There will be someone who can help.

Tweakie.

Is anyone here from the northern Virginia area?

I am building a laser cutter/engraver and am looking for someone near me that is experienced in initial setup.

Thanks in advance for a reply.

Eric

Hi everyone.

My name is Tommy and I just got my DIY Fine Line Automation CNC machine up and running.  Its a 2'x4' cutting area 3 axis machine and Im really excited and somewhat frustrated with it so far.  Im going to be using Vectric's CAM software, Solidworks for CAD, and obviously Mach 3 for CNC control.  Ive been cutting styrofoam, wood, and aluminum for 3 days straight now and am preparing to actually make something worthwhile in the next week or so.

My name is Ed Gillis from Toronto, Canada. I have just built a 2'x4' cnc router machine. The electronics and motors have not arrived yet.
I wanted to know about a USB to parallel cable but got the answer in the forum without asking. My solution was to buy a PCI parallel card and install it.

Great source.
Thanks Ed