CNC and manual?

[Lakc]

I am entertaining the idea of converting my Millport to cnc for hobby use. There are a lot of miles on the knee and saddle and while its still quite capable of accurate work it does require some care to do so. The Y axis leadscrew is quite worn so there is considerable pitch lead variation.
If I had a set of linear scales for a DRO installed is there any system that could use that as feedback for a servo system? Would that still allow me to use manual control of the mill? I have no desire to loose full manual control.

 

[Jadecy]

I entertained the same thing for a while on my bridgeport. I added up the ballscrews, electronics, mounts, etc. and ultimately decided against it. I came to the conclusion I would be further ahead to just buy a CNC machine later.

You may already know G-Code and CNC already but I did not so I bought myself a sherline CNC ready to play with. This gets me going toward my goal of a larger CNC machine.

Check out CNCZone forum for more info on retro fitting if you still want to head that direction.

 

[Tin Falcon]

I believe Mach 3 will handle this http://www.machsupport.com/

 

[vlmarshall]

So will EMC2. http://www.linuxcnc.org/

 

[Lakc]

Thanks for the answers! I now have a lot more reading to do.