"HOMEBREW" Lathe, My Intro. to Mach and CNC

[Overloaded]

Hello everyone,
Here is my little lathe that I put together with stuff on hand. I had a variety of components lying around and the cnc bug bit me in the butt so I  sort of slapped it together. The headstock is a right angle gearbox housing from an old Hytrol conveyor, the bearings are new surplus. I got the Idea for the tool plate from Ian Ralston in a previous post. The spindle is 5C. I may get a small chuck for it. All I had to buy was a BOB and pulse card from CNC4pc and of course the license from Artsoft.
This is my introduction to the world of CNC. I'd read a bit about it but wanted something to self teach with hands on lessons. I get a better grip on things if I can make some chips fly. (Luckily, none are from the spindle... YET !)
I hope I don't "BUG" everyone too much in the forums, I'm eager to learn and have many questions. I DO search first but haven't picked up the language proficiently yet, so please bear with me.
I have run several of the wizards with surprisingly GOOD results and have hand written several simple codes.
I'm a little bit more amazed every day.
Mach, IMO, is a fantastic product. Even though I have nothing to compare it to.
Bye for now,
Thanks

[zarzul]

Nice work!!

Arnie

[Chaoticone]

Good job! 

Brett

[Hood]

Looks great, how good is the line of the X and Z?
Hood

[Overloaded]

Thanks for the compliments.
The base plate, headstock and all of the axis rails were drilled, tapped and dowel pinned in a BP vert. mill with a DRO.
Everything is true and square to .0005". I even surface ground some of the plates. (If that's what you mean Hood.)
It really moves too freely on the rails. Only .007" backlash but no "sticktion".
One other problem is setting the tool heights, shimming is the only way I know to do it. Pain in the hump.
Any suggestions ?
This is just a learner, I'd like to build a good rock solid Lathe/Mill combination rig next.

Here is a couple of pics. of some sample parts Mach made for me. I was most impressed with the thread cutting. 48 tpi at 1300 rpm, 3 cuts, 1 spring.

Thanks again

[Ian Ralston]

Overloaded,

That is a remarkable job you have done there! Not many people would have designed a lathe from scratch. I, in turn, got my inspiration to try a toolplate from Omniturn.

http://www.omni-turn.com/Pages/Videos/Video%20page.html

In particular look at the Pill Case Demo, magic!

The toolplate I use is a standard Boxford item but not seen very often, mostly the 8 position turret or a quick change toolpost.
Packing is a major nuisance, I would suggest you make the height from the toolplate standard, sized to use standard size tools, then all tools are on the same centre. Or, use standard carbide turning inserts.

Ian

[Overloaded]

Thanks Ian,
My connection is WAY too slow to dnld the vids. I requested a CD from them.
I machined the tool holders so 1/4" square HSS are the perfect height  but whatever is ground from the top has to be made up with shims.
I guess carbide is the way to go, maybe next time.

Thanks again for the inspiration and input.

[zarzul]

For the hose barb, did you hand code that or use a wizard?

[Overloaded]

Hey zarzul,
That was coded by hand. Pretty basic learning experience for me. I did all of the threading, turning and radius codes also just to learn how. Wizards are cool but I want to know the in's and out's first. Me and this forum are my only teachers.....and I'm probably not the best student.
I later wrote the code to chamfer the ID, face the end to a small radius on the OD at the end, then the tapered cuts.
It is tubing to begin with, no drilling or boring necessary.
Can't wait to do something REAL.
Thanks,
RC

[ftomazz]

Hi.

Can you please tell what are the necessary hardware to make threads ?
I have a small lathe almost done, with a frequency inverter to control the spindle speed, and two axis. No problem to move the axis or to control the spindle speed, that I am currently doing manually.
I think that Mach MUST know with precision the position of the spindle. How this is achieved ? With an encoder ? Some special hardware ?

This makes some confusion to me . Since you did it, maybe I could achieve my goal more quikly.

Thanks, Filipe