For a hobby machine, DIY might be the way to go. I did my sharp knee mill over several years. Ball screws from Rockford ball screws, were not cheap, but work well. Servo motors and gecko motor controllers from automationtechnologiesinc.com. Scales for feed back from dropros. Controller card from mesanet.com. All controlled with linuxcnc.org and a usb controller from vistacnc.com. Milled motor mounts for the... Source: over 1 year ago

I'm building a DIY-ish 3d printer, I know the Duet 3D boards can run spindles. https://www.machsupport.com/software/mach3/ Or Http://linuxcnc.org/ can run stepper driver boards with a spare desktop. Source: over 1 year ago

Good questions, I may be able to help with some of them but I know there are plenty of more experienced mill owners: 1. This is usually done manually or with indexing pins. If you look at the nomad flip jig you can see some techniques for physically re-aligning the part. Since you have skills in that area, a software solution could help, but I’m not aware of anything off the shelf in the hobby space. It could be... Source: almost 2 years ago

This system is so old, I would recommend looking into converting to LinuxCNC https://linuxcnc.org/. Source: over 2 years ago

If you are basically just a CNC operator they will take about the same amount of time to learn how to run them. LinuxCNC however may take a little more time configuring the system depending on features. You will definitely learn a bit more about how your machine operates configuring LinuxCNC since you have to compute a few settings based on your screw pitches and latency jitter of your PC. The calculators and... Source: over 2 years ago

I don't know what's on screen, but if you're looking for a nice, cross platform program to send some gcode, I really like UGS: https://winder.github.io/ugs_website/. Source: about 2 years ago

Connect the 3018 to a PC, use a gcode sender like Candle or gSender or cncjs or UGS and then type $$ in the console. Source: over 2 years ago

I'm a little cheap+lazy and I just use a simple electrical contact probe using https://winder.github.io/ugs_website/ and the probe plugin. Flipping the part I generally butt the stock against a fixed parallel, then probe using the tool for X+Y (offset by the tool radius), and Z probe as well off some of the un-machined stock. Source: over 2 years ago

4 - Can you try to start the spindle from a PC (you will need a gcode sender: Candle, UGS/UGP, cncjs)? Source: almost 3 years ago