CNC Lathe

[John Foster]

Is anyone working on converting 9" or 10" lathes to CNC. I have the lathe and the computer and feel the mechanics of it are straight machine work (mounting steppers, ball screws, etc.) but I also know the controller is the next necessary part. Does anyone know how, at a price you can justify for a home shop, to do this? Thanks John

[John Stevenson]

John,
The controller is the hard part of it.
Mills are easy, loads out there from free to 10K
Lathes are harder because of the spindle encoder required for threading. If you don't want to CNC thread then any mill program will do this.
Controllers that will support spindle encoders are, in no order, TurboCNC, Microkinetics and Ahha.
Arts new Mach1 still in design at the moment will also have this.
TurboCNC is limited and I think I'm correct when I say not much has been done with it.
Microkinetics and Ahha are both reasonably expensive, around 1K

HTH
John S.

[John Foster]

John S. Thanks for the reply. I agree the a spindle encoder is a tough one but seems you would still need feed back to know that the spindle is, in fact, turning.
1K for the controller is a lot better than what I have found so far. Thanks, John

[roberlt]

Don't know if its adaptable to one this size however check out frog (HSM advertizer) also you mite look into the weeder module www.weedtech.com (http://www.weedtech.com) Its not exactly CNC but looks interesting.

Rob

[John Foster]

Rob, I had seen frog but assumed they were not powerful enough but will check. Had not heard of weed but will do also. Thanks, John

[Clinton]

Check out Yahoo groups CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO its a forum for people who roll their own. Acumotion sells a controller 4 axis about $1000 us. I have one and like it. CNCPRO sold by Yeager Automation has their own forum. They do a controller as well based on the Gecko modules. Prices are posted. There are kits available but are a job for someone who is good at soldering.