Steve's (now Rubes) CNC lathe 2.0

[rubes]

You all have seen Steve's (S_J_H) neat little CNC lathe build take place on this forum. Well, due to the terrible missfortune of loosing my father, I was able to trade a neat little drill press he had to Steve for the little lathe. Well, most of it anyway. Steve removed the CNC parts for his HBM build, so I need to recreate those parts. And he also kept the VFD and drive motor. I don't think I will be able to improve much on this thing, but my first order of business was to CAD it all up and start messin' around with ideas. I'm much better with CAD than machining, so I'll do all my tests on the screen before cutting metal. I'm going to try and get the cross feed screw under the cross slide. The 5/8 screw I'm using makes it a pretty tight fit, but I think I can make it work. The only "problem" is that with the double nut, the screw will have to extend out the back pretty far. I may try a smaller screw, but it looks like its only marginaly better, with 2 or 3 times the cost.
Anyway, here is some renders I've done so far.

[lazlo]

That's a gorgeous rendering -- it looks ray-traced? What tool did you use?

[rubes]

Thanx Lazlo. It was modeled in Inventor 2009, and rendered with the built in Inventor Studio.

[John Stevenson]

Runes,
if you are struggling for space to get the screw in how about jacking the X slide rails up on two lengths of ground flat stock ?

From your renderings it looks like you have plenty of room to go higher without compromising what can pass over the saddle, that will then give you a bit more to play with under the slide.

[rubes]

John...I effectively did the same thing, but by milling a relief on the carriage plate. I'm also going to need to widen the linear rails a bit more to allow space for the screw between the trucks. I didn't want to space it up because as you know, once you have something its hard to give it up (useful or not) LOL. Right now I would be able to turn a 5" diam part over the cross slide.
I'm just not that crazy about the 3" of screw sticking out the back of the machine.

[S_J_H]

Awesome job with the cad rendering Rube! Once you get it all sorted out, I'll cut the parts for you. The little lathe is going to be better than ever. Can't wait to see the final results.

When I originally built the machine I did all the " rendering" in my head,lol.
Steve

[tony ennis]

Does it take longer to make the computer model than it does to build the machine itself?

To make one crappy little part for my Craftsman I spent hours in a drafting program...

[rubes]

Does it take longer to make the computer model than it does to build the machine itself?

To make one crappy little part for my Craftsman I spent hours in a drafting program...

Tony...for me I can model very quickly (been using these tools for well over 10 years). I did pretty much all of that in one Sunday afternoon/evening.
The advantage is that I can try different things before even cutting any metal. And that is what tends to slow you down...trying the many different approaches to a problem. But in my mind, the final result is always a much better machine. Of course there are people that can do the same thing all in their heads (Steve!!), but I'm definitely NOT one of them.

[BillH]

Tony...for me I can model very quickly (been using these tools for well over 10 years). I did pretty much all of that in one Sunday afternoon/evening.
The advantage is that I can try different things before even cutting any metal. And that is what tends to slow you down...trying the many different approaches to a problem. But in my mind, the final result is always a much better machine. Of course there are people that can do the same thing all in their heads (Steve!!), but I'm definitely NOT one of them.

And this is why I love Solid Works. Good job.