Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: bowber on November 24, 2008, 07:08:24 AM

Title: Mill as a lathe
Post by: bowber on November 24, 2008, 07:08:24 AM

Hi

I have a mill using the latest stable release of mach, I'm thinking of setting up the lathe module to do some basic profile turning of some cutters.
Can I just open Mach turn and setup the ports and pins, outputs/inputs etc?
Does Mach keep these separate from Mill? I'm guessing it does as there are separate xml files but I would like to be sure before I start messing.
Also for those that have done this is there anything to watch out for or that needs doing.

I had a look yesterday and turn seems to have taken in the motor ports and pins already from mill or was it just a coincidence :P motor tuning is way off though.
I'm also going to add an index pulse to the spindle for other reasons but it will come in on lathe for threading.
Does Mach need a disc with a cutout of will it work the same with a single "tooth", again I seem to remember that it needs to be a disc.

I don't use profiles, just the default mill profile.

Thanks
Steve

P.S. I will convert a small lathe some day but I seem to be gathering projects faster than I can do them ;D

Title: Re: Mill as a lathe
Post by: Hood on November 24, 2008, 07:36:28 AM

Yes no problems having a turn and mill profile and they wont mess with each other. Just coincidence that the pins are the same :)
Yes you can use a single tooth for the index pulse, just as long as its wide enough to produce a long enough signal.

Hood

Title: Re: Mill as a lathe
Post by: bowber on November 24, 2008, 11:02:16 AM

Thanks for that Hood, nice to have the confirmation.

I'm hoping to use it to profile some small gear cutters, I just have to think of a way to back them off for clearance.
There is a way were you offset the cutter and reprofile 1/4 of the cutter and then reset for each 1/4 this gets you 4 teeth with the ability to resharpen the cutter and keep the correct profile.

I was half way through making the profiling tools as in Ivan Laws book Gears and Gearcutting, but then I thought why am I going to all this effort when I've already got the CAD drawing of the tooth profile done and just need to have a CNC lathe to cut it.

This way I can turn the holder for the cutter, then profile them and they should end up concentric as I'm using an R8 blank so it will always go back in the same place.

Thanks
Steve

Title: Re: Mill as a lathe
Post by: Hood on November 24, 2008, 12:01:40 PM

Sounds interesting, make sure you post some pics :)
Hood