- Joined
- May 3, 2020
- Messages
- 229
Wondering how common CNC turrets are for small lathes. Couldn't find much on eBay or Alibaba. Are small turrets so rare? Something like this:
The backstory is that I'm doing a CNC conversion of a 9x20 lathe. For years, I was in need of a DRO and variable speed. I realize that being unwilling to change belts to adjust spindle speed is a character defect but apparently my character has taken a bit of a "set". I also acknowledge that a few speeds should be enough but I've watched a lot of 10EE content and became convinced that the variable speed is a real advantage for odd materials that only behave with particular feeds and speeds. Eventually I found some videos about electronic lead screws (ELS) would give me most DRO functions and I could throw away the change gears, too. From there, you're basically doing all the work of a CNC retrofit so I threw myself in the deep end and and purchased a Masso Touch control, closed-loop stepper motors, and an AC servo (86M-DHT from DMM and DYN4 driver) for the spindle. That should get me variable speed, ramp up, ramp down, and indexing.
The whole setup will enable me to cut tapers with a fixed tool post and thread quickly. Why quickly? Well, the other day I had to cut an external 5/8-18 thread in a O-1 part. Hadn't done any threading in 6 months so I was a little rusty. All told, it took 2 hours and I made a mistake on the 25th pass (too deep of a cut, IIRC) which forced me to make the part again and cut the threads again. The 2nd attempt was faster, of course, but the result was not the best because O-1 doesn't cut perfectly at 8 SFM and it still took an hour. Seems impossibly incompetent to take so long. So I'm hoping that CNC will speed me up a bit.
So... turrets for small lathes... where to buy?
The backstory is that I'm doing a CNC conversion of a 9x20 lathe. For years, I was in need of a DRO and variable speed. I realize that being unwilling to change belts to adjust spindle speed is a character defect but apparently my character has taken a bit of a "set". I also acknowledge that a few speeds should be enough but I've watched a lot of 10EE content and became convinced that the variable speed is a real advantage for odd materials that only behave with particular feeds and speeds. Eventually I found some videos about electronic lead screws (ELS) would give me most DRO functions and I could throw away the change gears, too. From there, you're basically doing all the work of a CNC retrofit so I threw myself in the deep end and and purchased a Masso Touch control, closed-loop stepper motors, and an AC servo (86M-DHT from DMM and DYN4 driver) for the spindle. That should get me variable speed, ramp up, ramp down, and indexing.
The whole setup will enable me to cut tapers with a fixed tool post and thread quickly. Why quickly? Well, the other day I had to cut an external 5/8-18 thread in a O-1 part. Hadn't done any threading in 6 months so I was a little rusty. All told, it took 2 hours and I made a mistake on the 25th pass (too deep of a cut, IIRC) which forced me to make the part again and cut the threads again. The 2nd attempt was faster, of course, but the result was not the best because O-1 doesn't cut perfectly at 8 SFM and it still took an hour. Seems impossibly incompetent to take so long. So I'm hoping that CNC will speed me up a bit.
So... turrets for small lathes... where to buy?