Cheap and dirty lathe conversion.. (Old Nebel lathe)

[skunkworks]

and so it begins... Someone sheered the taper pin on the end of the leadscrew twice - the second time only 50%.. Took us a bit to figure out why the taper pin wasn't driving out. So that need to be fixed.

Going to use the existing leascrew for Z - but replacing X axis with a ball screw.

[Bob La Londe]

Looks like a fun project. Yer gonna use Mach 3 right? LOL.

[skunkworks]

Lol - probably not.. Along with threading (yes, I know mach can thread in some form..) I want to play with some large non-circular turning. (dad wants it to crown some bandsaw wheels also.)

Looks like a fun project. Yer gonna use Mach 3 right? LOL.

[Bob La Londe]

Lol - probably not.. Along with threading (yes, I know mach can thread in some form..) I want to play with some large non-circular turning. (dad wants it to crown some bandsaw wheels also.)

It does ok for threading using a single pulse "encoder/tach", but I don't know if it supports a real encoder on the spindle or not. I may play with it someday if customers quit asking me to make stuff for a little while and I have money in the bank at the time. I've got a 7x10 converted to 7x16 that's been halfway through a CNC conversion for several years now, and an 8.5 x 18 that I think would make a killer conversion. I can't see converting the 14x40 lathe though. Its just to darn useful the way it is. I'll probably work on the little turret lathe first. I can see it being profitable to have running much quicker.

[skunkworks]

Yes - this is a big old lathe. 30"X96". (it is an upgrade from a flat belt driven lathe we finally retired...)

A lot of stuff we do on our machines are one offs.. (all cnc)

It will probably be run with the printer port initially - just to see how it works..

sam

[Bob La Londe]

Ah, come on. Atleast break out a UC100.

[skunkworks]

Lol - seriously though - for $89 there is the Ethernet mesa card that has 2 printer ports of high speed i/o.. Plus expandable with daughter cards.

sam

[Bob La Londe]

Well, last time I checked I could still get PCI parallel port cards from CNA for less than $20. I might still have one or two still in the box.

I started to be serious Bob up above and tell you that the first time I ran over a million lines of code successfully it was using a parallel port with Mach 3 to drive my Taig. Then smartass Bob took over and that thought went right out the window. I actually have a couple UC100s on my desk I was thinking about using for play setups, but since I went full time pro I just don't have the time to build anything just to play with anymore. I will say after my experience with the Tormach Mill running Path Pilot I am seriously considering COUGH Linuxcnc COUGH for the cast steel (and maybe epoxycrete) machine i am working on. I'll be running a lot larger jobs (multiple parts batches) on it and file size could easily exceed the 10 million line limit for Mach 3. Mach 4 does not interest me at all. Sorry, went off on my own thing there.

ANYWAY... I'd be really curious to see progress on your project.

[skunkworks]

a little farther...

[skunkworks]

getting there...

[Bob La Londe]

Instead of a spindle it looks like it has an inline engine. LOL.

[skunkworks]

Instead of a spindle it looks like it has an inline engine. LOL.

The thing is a beast... Its lowest rpm is 10...

sam

[skunkworks]

Z moving

[Bob La Londe]

Sa-weet!

You are inspiring me to want to get back on my little lathe project. The thing is is I was thinking about just using it as a free spin motorized axis on one of the milling machines.

[skunkworks]

I don't know how people live without a touch probe...