Quill Feed Drive for VMC Mill using a Stepper

I have put a few pictures of the Quill Feed Drive I made for my Warco VMC mill using a Nema 23 Stepper with a 4.25 to 1 gearbox in my album. It is loosely based on the Peter Rawlinson unit published in MEW No76.

I recently had to bore several holes for the cnc machine I am building and I got very bored having to keep turning the feed wheel by hand so I came up with this unit which works very well. You can still use the handwheel in manual mode if required.

On disassembling the worm shaft I decided to do away with the thrust bearings and use ball races instead. The thrust is not that high so I don't think there will be a problem. This meant I had to make a new housing which was made out of steel. I incorporated a preload spacer between the bearings so I could do away with the 2 lock nuts and just use 1. I drilled and tapped the lock nut for a small grub screw with a brass cap so as not to damage the thread.

The motor plate is 10mm aluminium. The motor is a small nema 23 with a 4.25:1 gearbox with a further 2:1 reduction by toothed belt and HTD3 pulleys. I made the ends by turning a 74mm od ally ring from some cored ally bar I had and then cut it in half. The sides are made from 6mm ally plate.

The large pulley fits into a recess on the handwheel and because the keyway on the shaft is not long enough I transmit the drive via a 6mm drive pin from the handwheel to the pulley.

I have been controlling it from the main control box which controls all the feed motors on the mill ( I am using the Z axis controller) but I am now going to use an arduino to control it. A fellow forum member has kindly sent me his program for the arduino so I can control it with a separate controller.

Hope it may be of interest to someone.

Could not include this picture with original post.

Nice work, Paul ... That looks very tidy.

May I ask where you obtained the 4.25:1 gearbox ?

MichaelG.

Michael

The Motor and gearbox came from Phidgets **LINK** and I got it via their German dealers noDNA **LINK**

Paul.

Thanks for the information, Paul ... It looks a very useful unit.

The documentation is excellent, and refreshingly honest [no exagerated claims about the geared-down step accuracy, for example].

It would probably do many of the jobs that people have asked about recently.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 23/03/2015 08:05:01

Paul - very neat and tidy work. Looks very businesslike and will hopefully make your workshop time more productive.

You must tell us more about your CNC machine! Is this a milling machine or a router? I'm part way through a CNC conversion based on a Bridgeport clone, currently interrupted by a recent move back to the UK. Would love to see / hear what you are up to and I'm sure that's true of the others here.

Murray