Recommendation for which Asian Lathe to buy.

[macardoso]

Is it possible you can recommend some used lathe brands which will perfectly work with an electronic lead screw? I wonder if there is any used PM lathe out there...

I am no expert on the system. I believe he only sells the electronics kit which you solder up. It is still on you to pick out the motor, build the adapter brackets, and make a case for the electronics.

 

[rajhliux]

I am no expert on the system. I believe he only sells the electronics kit which you solder up. It is still on you to pick out the motor, build the adapter brackets, and make a case for the electronics.

Do you think a lathe in the range of $2k-$3K from PM would be able to make accurate ball screw for the use of a custom built CNC?

 

[macardoso]

Do you think a lathe in the range of $2k-$3K from PM would be able to make accurate ball screw for the use of a custom built CNC?

Absolutely not. I would not consider any lathe capable of that task. Those screws are produced by precision thread rolling or precision grinding equipment. They are expensive for a reason.

 

[ttabbal]

Extremely interesting! This is what I needed to know, I am assuming your "ELS from clough42" (open source, even better) is an electronic leadscrew... anyhows I need this type of modification where one does not need to play around with gears for different threading and also for changing between metric and imperial. I will google search into this "ELS from clough42" stuff. I like how I can just type down the numbers on a pad rather than manually switching gears.

Electronic Lead Screw

I'm going to attempt to adapt clough42's ELS to my PM1127. I figure I might as well do it publicly in case it ends up being useful for someone else. I have most of the parts now, and have the electronics and servo running on the bench. The first thing I decided to mess with is the rotary...

www.hobby-machinist.com

Yes, it's an electronic leadscrew. There is a whole series on youtube documenting his build and he shares the design files out. You have to adapt it to your specific machine. A few people here have done so. For a larger lathe, you might need to use a more powerful motor. The one he used worked fine for mine, but my lathe is a similar size to his.

Here's the first video in his series. It's worth watching them to get a good idea how it works and what you need to do to make this work. It's not a simple bolt on. It's worth the effort, in my opinion. But I don't want to downplay the work. I think most anyone who wanted to can do it, but it's not a 5 minute job either.

 

[MrWhoopee]

You're putting the cart before the horse. There are no shortcuts to machining. Get some instruction and familiarity with a lathe before trying to buy one. Start here: https://www.makerspace.nyc/
Starting from zero on your own machine can get expensive.

 

[kb58]

I'm glad to see the useful replies that the OP is getting—and that I wasn't the first to respond. Half way the OP's post, I'm thinking "I bet that this guy's new." It's threads where someone unfamiliar with a product or device feels that it's reasonable to ask experienced operators and owners what to do. That by itself is perfectly reasonable, but what's disappointing is the lack of effort on their part to have done any research before asking. It's like their time is important, so therefore, we own them an immediate and accurate solution. Almost always, this request for an answer comes with insufficient information, and what's lacking here is whether this is for a business, or just a desire.

Oh yes, I've become grumpy and harsh, which comes from the frustration of those who don't made an effort before wanting others to provide them with an answer on a silver platter. I work in Field Support, and we never go to the engineers without first trying to figure it out on our own. Then, if we need their help, it shows them that we value their time, and can present what we think is going on, and they can either agree or provide a correction... just sayin'

 

[mmcmdl]

I'm not a true machinist, just a straight up noob. I totally agree with the logic of buying a used lathe, but a noob like myself has no idea where to even begin on finding one and hassel with all the repairs or what not for a used lathe. A noob will be wasting so much time it will be a project to refurbish the used lathe. I hate refurbishing stuff. Would rather pay a good bill for a new product that is ready to be used straight out of the box. I don't think there is any used lathe in the market which has a fully automatic gearbox for changing imperial and metric.

This site is overloaded with threads that will answer your questions . Read up on them and familiarize yourself with advantages and disadvantages of specific equipment .

 

[macardoso]

I'm glad to see the useful replies that the OP is getting—and that I wasn't the first to respond. Half way the OP's post, I'm thinking "I bet that this guy's new." It's threads where someone unfamiliar with a product or device feels that it's reasonable to ask experienced operators and owners what to do. That by itself is perfectly reasonable, but what's disappointing is the lack of effort on their part to have done any research before asking. It's like their time is important, so therefore, we own them an immediate and accurate solution. Almost always, this request for an answer comes with insufficient information, and what's lacking here is whether this is for a business, or just a desire.

Oh yes, I've become grumpy and harsh, which comes from the frustration of those who don't made an effort before wanting others to provide them with an answer on a silver platter. I work in Field Support, and we never go to the engineers without first trying to figure it out on our own. Then, if we need their help, it shows them that we value their time, and can present what we think is going on, and they can either agree or provide a correction... just sayin'

In OP's defense, they did identify themselves as being very new. There is a significant burden when someone is brand new to a topic in not knowing what they don't know. I was brutally reminded of this fact when I recently started an electronics project and joined some electronics forums. I really wanted to convey my lack of knowledge, my effort I had put into the topic, and my willingness to learn, but I got a lot of flak over there for the questions I asked.

I came up with the name Mt. Stupid to describe this feeling. It is the obstacle that stands in your way to learning a topic and when you're at the bottom of that mountain, you might not even have any idea things exist or what to call them. It is hard to do meaningful research until you've gotten over that first barrier. I hope we can all help OP (and the countless more to come) learn what they need to get going. After all we are the "Friendly Machinist Forum" and that's the biggest reason I love this site!

 

[rajhliux]

Electronic Lead Screw

I'm going to attempt to adapt clough42's ELS to my PM1127. I figure I might as well do it publicly in case it ends up being useful for someone else. I have most of the parts now, and have the electronics and servo running on the bench. The first thing I decided to mess with is the rotary...

www.hobby-machinist.com

Yes, it's an electronic leadscrew. There is a whole series on youtube documenting his build and he shares the design files out. You have to adapt it to your specific machine. A few people here have done so. For a larger lathe, you might need to use a more powerful motor. The one he used worked fine for mine, but my lathe is a similar size to his.

Here's the first video in his series. It's worth watching them to get a good idea how it works and what you need to do to make this work. It's not a simple bolt on. It's worth the effort, in my opinion. But I don't want to downplay the work. I think most anyone who wanted to can do it, but it's not a 5 minute job either.

Yes I have already watched all of them, learned a lot.
Thanks!

 

[rajhliux]

I'm glad to see the useful replies that the OP is getting—and that I wasn't the first to respond. Half way the OP's post, I'm thinking "I bet that this guy's new." It's threads where someone unfamiliar with a product or device feels that it's reasonable to ask experienced operators and owners what to do. That by itself is perfectly reasonable, but what's disappointing is the lack of effort on their part to have done any research before asking. It's like their time is important, so therefore, we own them an immediate and accurate solution. Almost always, this request for an answer comes with insufficient information, and what's lacking here is whether this is for a business, or just a desire.

Oh yes, I've become grumpy and harsh, which comes from the frustration of those who don't made an effort before wanting others to provide them with an answer on a silver platter. I work in Field Support, and we never go to the engineers without first trying to figure it out on our own. Then, if we need their help, it shows them that we value their time, and can present what we think is going on, and they can either agree or provide a correction... just sayin'

The reason why you're assuming I didn't do my "research" before hand is because I do not believe everything I read from the internet. I did do some google and researching for the past few days but still wasn't sure which lathe to get. Therefore the most wise thing anyone can do to get precise and proper information is by asking question to "professionals" for the particular subject. Glad I did because I ended up knowing the "electronic leadscrew".

My questions are for pure desire and nothing business related. I am a hobbyist in mechanical, electrical and electronics. But machining is new to me.