jim, was the original denford optical switch missing from the lathe
Yes, I bought the lathe on Ebay from a guy that was parting out Denford lathes. I bought the lathe bed with ballscrews, and purchased
the original spindle motor, chuck and tailstock separately. Right or wrong, it was what I was looking for. I was told the Denford
is the same or similar to an EMCO 8.
I'm also working on a toolchanger for my Denford. I built this indexer as a prototype now thinking of building another one that is smaller. I found a way to address the backlash issue with worms and worm gear setups.
http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=93146The guy I bought the lathe from was using a stepper motor on the spindle for cutting threads so I copied his idea. I had a stepper motor, timing belts and pulleys on hand so it cost only some time to set up. Plus I learned how to have a stepper move in angular steps thinking that knowledge would be used on my CNC indexer.
The stepper motor on the spindle for cutting threads was rather impressive to see work. All my experience has been cutting threads on geared lathes. I used delrin plastic to cut my first CNC threads. But the stepper failed miseralbly cutting a 5/8-18 in steel. The stepper did not have the power and lost steps. The stepper might work well on 10-32 and smaller threads but I'm not going to bother
trying it.
Thanks, Jim
Thanks, Jim