My Optimum BF20L CNC Conversion

As many of you know (and as you can read in the about page) a couple years ago I decided to built a CNC milling machine. I started with the structure of an Optimum BF20L manual milling machine, it was a good base to start on. Then I changed the axis screws and nuts with the more precise ball screws and ball nuts, added the step motors and relative trasmission to the three axis, some induction sensors and then I designed and assembled the electronics of the machine that included: power supply, transformer, motor drivers and a the actual “brain” of the machine that was a Colibrì control board.
And that was it… well no… the machine moved and worked properly but the spindle motor wasn’t suitable for continuous operation so I changed it with a brushless motor with belt trasmission and an inverter, after some time i had to upgrade the spindle ball bearings too and I needed to built a tank to collect the refrigerant.
So in this section of my website I’d like to gather some information, photos and video relative to the whole operations of conversion.
And if you have any question just write a comment or send me an email through the module you can find in the Contacts page.

In this first video I explain in detail how the electronic board of my cnc is assembled, which components there are and what are they for.

In this second video I explain in detail the mechanical components that are used to actually move the cnc machine and the sensors used for the homing sequence of the machine.

In this third video I do a little test of the movement and interpolation of the three axis.