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« on: September 18, 2009, 04:08:23 AM »
Yes I think MT5 taper is pushing it a bit for the Orac, not too large for the Dean Smith & Grace though ! There is also a Bridgeport Romi CNC lathe in the shop which unusually is PC based (but with closed loop control and DC servos). These machines have a some very user friendly functions. One of the most useful ,which would be great in Mach, is the ability to quickly define "stops". For example, say you wanted to cut a groove a certain width and depth you could quickly set stops for min diameter and min and max Z. Then machine the groove using the handwheels like a manual lathe, but the axis movement will not go past the "stops" you have defined. i.e. When you reach those limits you can just keep turning the handwheels and nothing happens. It's not even necessary to look at the DRO's. I don't know how difficult this would be to introduce into the Mach software but it would be very useful for machines fitted with handwheels. Another feature is taper turning where you define a taper angle and just turn the Z handwheel, the X axis moves automatically to give you the taper you want. Same for radius.