[VHS Group Project] Sherline CNC mill

OK, as some of you may have seen I have been messing with the Sherline. Time for some brain dump on my misadventures.
I will make another post about the PCB milling part. This is mostly my observation on the Sherline CNC itself.

I have changed the .ini file so that when homed. the machine co-ord at the top of the z-axis is zero and -8 (inches) and bed level.
now it runs like i expect it to, and fusion 360 has built-in surpport for linuxCNC

The sherline has some reliability issues, looking to get some feed back on how I can go about improving the machine. thanks

  • with regard to the z-axis. the coupling from the motor to lead screw was slipping. i have tightened the set screws, which seem to have solved the problem for now. I don’t know if this is indicative of some sort of wear and tear issue
  • the wire on the z-axis homing switch is prone to coming loose enough to not making contact but not visually noticeable. This causes huge issues if you are trying to home. this can probably be remedies with some soldering.
  • at some point while machining tonight the belt slipped right off of the pulley on the headstock mid operation.
  • the computer crashed at one point, and when i reset the computer, the spindle turned on. i am not sure if there is a way to rewire the controller so it doesn’t default to on, when computer is not connected.
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