I converted my G704 and my Jet 9x20 to CNC, and am very disappointed. I bought the lathe cnc conversion from a company in Texas who made a custom kit by shipping him my saddle and lead screw. The workmanship was poor, and was built with both quarter inch thrust bearings and 6 millimeter bearings. The builder didn't even know that 2 different bearings were used in the cross slide. I built an new apron for it, and added a spindle encoder thinking I could then cut threads, but my USB to jparallel port converter did not have that ability.
The G704 conversion was much better although it cost me some of my Y axis travel. The lathe has less precision than before. My little Sherline lathe is more accurate. I drive both my Jet lathe and grizzly mill with Mach, which does the job with one driver, through a relay box which selects either the mill or the lathe. I use Meshcam to convert my cad files to cam. Overall, I am sorry for converting the lathe. But at this point it doesn't matter since health problems prevent me from using any of my equipment. I also bought a Creality resin printer which I have yet to try. So I will probably end up selling my equipment if I can.
Good luck with this forum. I created and ran a colloidal gold and silver forum (cgcsforum.org) for almost 20 years acting as webmaster and server admin, so I know this is a lot of work. Its worth it though. This will be a good resource for many people.
I ran it like a school and taught over 8000 people how to make nanparicles at home. My background is in physics and chemistry, not machining.
The G704 conversion was much better although it cost me some of my Y axis travel. The lathe has less precision than before. My little Sherline lathe is more accurate. I drive both my Jet lathe and grizzly mill with Mach, which does the job with one driver, through a relay box which selects either the mill or the lathe. I use Meshcam to convert my cad files to cam. Overall, I am sorry for converting the lathe. But at this point it doesn't matter since health problems prevent me from using any of my equipment. I also bought a Creality resin printer which I have yet to try. So I will probably end up selling my equipment if I can.
Good luck with this forum. I created and ran a colloidal gold and silver forum (cgcsforum.org) for almost 20 years acting as webmaster and server admin, so I know this is a lot of work. Its worth it though. This will be a good resource for many people.
I ran it like a school and taught over 8000 people how to make nanparicles at home. My background is in physics and chemistry, not machining.
