Do I see a lathe in here trying to get out?

[sansbury]

I've been thinking about CNC'ing my 7x10 to deal with simple, repetitive part-making like motor mounts and the like, but I've never been able to get excited about it due to all the compromises in the 7x to begin with.

Anyway, while cleaning some things up, I remembered the remains of an X1 mill I had laying around, and an X2 headstock and spindle. Seems like a new X table, trademill, and some leadscrews, and we're ready to Frankenlathe... what do you guys think?

http://www.hrmdirect.com/cwk/photo.jpg

FWIW, I realize this is going to have a relatively small envelope, but most of my lathe work seems to be 1" or less diameter by 2-3" long, and I'd still have the 7x for bigger stuff. I figure I'd use either R-8 collets or an ER-32 chuck for workholding, and I could use the X1 table as a cross-slide with gang tooling.

[hojpoj]

I dunno, that's looking dangerously close to being a horizontal mill. I think I'm more jealous than anything else, that looks to be a feasible proposition if your work envelope really is that small.

*Grumble grumble* Wish I had random parts of benchtop machines laying about!:rolleyes:

Hell, throw a rotab on there and you've got yerself a radius cutter, too!

[sansbury]

I thought about the horizontal mill, but I had a hard time seeing an easy way to do a Z axis. The lathe capability kind of just falls together.

It is an interesting thought, though. If you gave the headstock 6-8" of vertical travel, you can still set it up as a lathe, but you can also use it like a horizontal machining center. Add a rotary table with a tombstone and you could run production for hours. Fun idea but I think I'll get the lathe to work first. :)

[macona]

You would be better off buying a cheap 7x lathe and going from there.

[S_J_H]

I would go for it. It would be a nice little cnc machine.
In case you may have missed it- This is what I came up with using a lot of spare parts I had laying around.
http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/showthread.php?t=32719


Steve

[sansbury]

Steve: your build was definitely an inspiration.

Macona: I have a 7x already and there are a few reasons why I'm not CNC-ing it.

- I like the idea of having a manual lathe for fiddling around.

- I'd like to set up gang tooling with say a turning/facing tool, threading tool, spot drill, and a drill chuck, and the 7x cross-slide is just way too small for this.

- The leadscrew setup on the cross-slide is questionable for CNC and kind of hard to improve.

Anyway, that plus having all the X1 parts sitting there (and most of the CNC setup I'd used before I sold it as a manual mill) is what's motivating me this way.

Anybody know a good source for cheap motors and controllers? Surplus Center used to have treadmill motors for short money but they seem all out, and I am sick sick sick of fleaBay.

[macona]

cncdrives.com has some great little servo drives that ought to fit this project perfect. Get a couple dc servos off ebay. Pittmans are good as well as electrocraft. My little compulathe had 70w motors if I recall.

[wierdscience]

I've been thinking about CNC'ing my 7x10 to deal with simple, repetitive part-making like motor mounts and the like, but I've never been able to get excited about it due to all the compromises in the 7x to begin with.

Anyway, while cleaning some things up, I remembered the remains of an X1 mill I had laying around, and an X2 headstock and spindle. Seems like a new X table, trademill, and some leadscrews, and we're ready to Frankenlathe... what do you guys think?

FWIW, I realize this is going to have a relatively small envelope, but most of my lathe work seems to be 1" or less diameter by 2-3" long, and I'd still have the 7x for bigger stuff. I figure I'd use either R-8 collets or an ER-32 chuck for workholding, and I could use the X1 table as a cross-slide with gang tooling.

You have my attention since I have the same parts pile here,only my X-2 head is green:D

The more I think about it the better I like it,been scratching up parts today.

If you want to to a two-man team build let me know.