This afternoon I finished piecing the Z axis together.  It still needs screws and  tightening, but I wanted to get the motor test fitted first.  You can see the motor mount at the bottom of the above picture.  There was just one itty bitty problem with Bertha, my Z axis motor.

Bertha is the largest NEMA 34 ever captured in the wild.  She was brought down as she savagely plundered the African plains.  At 650 in. oz. of holding torque…the motor is quite large.

The smaller motor to the right is the spindle motor for my smaller machine.  When I tried to fit the belt drive gear on the shaft, I discovered that the hole in the gear was too small for the shaft.  Once again, I chucked the wayward part into my lathe and reworked it.

I won’t tell you that you need a lathe to undertake a conversion project like this one, but I will suggest that you at least find a friend with one!