- Joined
- Nov 1, 2018
- Messages
- 98
This is a thread about CNC Lathe I recently built. This is my first CNC machine, and obviously, I’m not a CNC guru. Being an engineer, I prefer more practical ways of making things rather than R&D approach with investing plenty of time, money and energy. This is also why I use simple and robust ideas instead of diving deep into unique ones and solving the problems just created.
I started with Atlas lathe bed I bought on ebay. This bed has pretty wide (1-1/2”) flat ways, so one can easily put the linear bearing rails on it.
I use THK HRW-21 slides. The rail is 37mm wide, so it uses the whole width of the bed ways. The slide block is 21mm tall (with a rail) – this is a low-profile series. I think it’s important to use low-profile one here because the overall heights of the “sandwich” limits the maximum swing over carriage. The same HRW-21 slides are used for X coordinate as well.
I put ~1/2” aluminum plate in between of Z and X rails. I milled the surfaces and made the threaded holes to mount the slides on the plate. The X-screw supports are also mounted on the plate. The milling was done on my manual EMCO machine.
There are some essential parts I bought in LMS online store. These are: the headstock casting, the spindle with 4” flange, and the milling table.
I didn’t buy the headstock assembly because it goes with 3” spindle, ball bearings and other stuff I didn’t need (gears, etc.). I installed roller bearings. The riser blocks were made to rise the headstock by 1-1/2”.
1605 ballscrews were installed on both coordinates. The bed has about 42mm spacing between the ways. So 40mm wide ballnut fits perfectly.
To be continued with Drives and Tooling.
I started with Atlas lathe bed I bought on ebay. This bed has pretty wide (1-1/2”) flat ways, so one can easily put the linear bearing rails on it.
I use THK HRW-21 slides. The rail is 37mm wide, so it uses the whole width of the bed ways. The slide block is 21mm tall (with a rail) – this is a low-profile series. I think it’s important to use low-profile one here because the overall heights of the “sandwich” limits the maximum swing over carriage. The same HRW-21 slides are used for X coordinate as well.
I put ~1/2” aluminum plate in between of Z and X rails. I milled the surfaces and made the threaded holes to mount the slides on the plate. The X-screw supports are also mounted on the plate. The milling was done on my manual EMCO machine.
There are some essential parts I bought in LMS online store. These are: the headstock casting, the spindle with 4” flange, and the milling table.
I didn’t buy the headstock assembly because it goes with 3” spindle, ball bearings and other stuff I didn’t need (gears, etc.). I installed roller bearings. The riser blocks were made to rise the headstock by 1-1/2”.
1605 ballscrews were installed on both coordinates. The bed has about 42mm spacing between the ways. So 40mm wide ballnut fits perfectly.
To be continued with Drives and Tooling.