Does anyone have a Legacy CNC

[Paul Bennett]

I have had a manual Legacy 1200 for many years. I use it for roping, barley twisting, and fluting. Recently I purchased their CNC upgrade which was to give me a 5 axis CNC.

The learning curve is a great deal steeper than what the salesman promised. I also question its basic proformance I don't mean to bore my fellow "forumites" with sad details but I would like to hear from anyone that has purchased a Legacy CNC and to hear experience with the machine.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Can you describe what part of it is giving you problems?

 

[Paul Bennett]

The biggest thing seems to be a general looseness of the whole machine. Everything is driven by acme screws. There is slack in the screws that causes problems when you need to go over a cut to clean it up. It does not center to the same place on the second cut.

Other than that is software problems.

 

[Joe Greiner]

I'm not a mechanical engineer, but that seems to be the bane of many movable contraptions with less than jewel-like precision.

If your "second cut" is in the reverse direction of the first, you may find it helpful to program (or manually interfere) so that the cutter is lifted away from the workpiece on the reverse move, and make the second cut in the same direction as the first. Further, attach counterweights or springs to the tool carrier, so that the guiding surfaces are always against one another. It might even be possible to mount the machinery, tilted each way, so that gravity by itself provides this function. And, upon reflection, the hand-fired versions of these tools could also probably be enhanced this way.

See the recent discussion on Cross Slide Vises for more thoughts on reducing slop and backlash.