CNC CONVERSION - 6" ATLAS LATHE

[BClemens]

Really nice! I have an old Atlas 6" that my Dad gave me when I was about 12 years old. Years ago I made a quick change gearbox for it...if these conversions were going on then maybe I wouldn't have had to make all those gears! I still use it now and then. I sold a 12" one (I could kick myself now) that would have made a nice CNC conversion. Hindsight!

Great documentation of the conversion!!!!

Bill C.

[RICH]

This picture shows the mounting of a stepper which is used for indexing of the spindel.
The stepper is mounted out of the way and just removing one screw in the based allows
for easy belt removal. Setup needs to be easy. The spindle pulley is mounted onto an expandable mandrel
and then just tightening one screw expands the mandrel and locks it to the spindle bore.
Not much of a reduction via the pulleys so steps per degree is only 7.04 which is not desireable.
But I wanted to see how usable and easy the setup would be. Need to order some belts and pulleys so
the stepper with the gear reducer can be mounted.

So now i can experiment using the rotary feature for drilling and milling along  the Z  and X axis.

RICH

[Dan13]

Looks good Rich! What kind of work are you intending to perform on this lathe requiring indexing?

Daniel

[RICH]

Dan,
Will not do any "heavy drilling or milling".
Example: Say I turn a tapered profile and it has a flange on the top of it. Without removing it from the lathe i will be able to flute part of the tapered section, drill around and into the face of the flange. So  I am combining some of the features that you would normaly do using an rotary table on the mill. Additionaly i can do engraving around  the piece. Save a lot of time.

Since the lathes axis are very accurate i can do some realy nice peck drilling of small holes ( thank's to Melee's macros he just posted). I have not tried profiling using Copy cat on the lathe yet,but, again combining some things will just make makiing some of the small parts for a model so much easier and less time consuming.
I can easily swap my drives axis cables around and manipulate the Gcode.

It all depends on what i am going to do.
I don't know how my barrel for the 629 will prfofile out, but should be interesting.  I want to minimise some of the hand work.

Hope that gives you an idea of use,
RICH

BTW, You realy should have the A setup so you get a nice ratio which is divisible by 360 evenly. May need to make my owne pulleys and not use the 10:1 gear reducer.

[Dan13]

Ah... forgot you had that nice milling attachment Is it a self made spindle you attached to the electric motor?

Daniel

[RICH]

Here is an upgraded indexer for the lathe. Mounts same as the stepper i mounted to try indexing out ( easly installed or removed).
I modified a gear reducer ( from the junk box ) so that the stepper was directly mounted to it. Total reduction is 135:1 which provides for 750 steps per degree. So positioning is more accurate than i can drill or mill and have the ability to run linearly at very slow feed rates to over  80 IPM with adequate torque / power for what i will do. Don't need to use backlash compensation and the DRO displays even numbers ( not 359.9875 or something for 360 degrees). Need to order a few timing belts and just drill a few holes in the base.
Till I start doing some fancy milling around a cyclinder on the lathe,
RICH