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Author Topic: Prima Lathe conversion  (Read 42408 times)

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Prima Lathe conversion
« on: September 18, 2013, 01:43:11 AM »
This is the one I longed to do for a long time. Prima is one of the finest brands of Lathes produced in Pakistan. Last week a customer asked if I would do a CNC conversion on his one year old Prima. Yesterday it arrived here in my workshop and already stripped off of it's gears, lead screw, feed rod, feed carriage, end brackets and all. Over the course of one month we are going to install AC servos, ball screws, limit/home switches, VFD, Spindle Encoder, Smooth Stepper, and of course Mach3. I will try to document it (which is always a hard job for me :) ). Here is a photo of the stripped down machine.
Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2013, 09:06:16 AM »
Over the course of one month we are going to install AC servos, ball screws, limit/home switches, VFD, Spindle Encoder, Smooth Stepper, and of course Mach3.
You folks have 78 hour days over there?

Just kiddiing; I'm sure you'll "git 'er done" as planned.  I do hope you find time to document the build as I have really enjoyed your previous threads.:)
Milton from Tennessee ya'll.
Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2013, 10:16:54 AM »
Motors, drives and VFD inverter are here. 750W AC servos, 2.2 kW sensorless vector inverter. Have to arrange for their enclosure cabinet and the front panel box tomorrow. Also have to design the ball screws mounting fixtures in CAD. The x-axis slide has too little space beneath it to fit a ball nut. I am thinking about a rotating nut mechanism for x-axis. Timing belts and pulleys for coupling motors to screws. Angular contact bearings for the screw ends. We are going to need 78-hour days ;).

Offline khalid

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Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2013, 12:46:28 PM »
Hi Zafar,
Great .. Love to see it operational within a month..This seems not a big project;)
Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2013, 01:21:07 PM »
This seems not a big project;)

This is not going to be as big or complicated (I hope) as the one we did together. It will be as much fun, that's for sure. Fun is the thing that drives us after all :)

Zafar

Offline Hood

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Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2013, 04:27:41 PM »
Looking forward to seeing this as well :)
I like to see lathes getting done, in fact I will be helping a friend retro a Beaver TC15 soon.

Hood

Offline khalid

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Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2013, 02:37:51 AM »
I do know you are presently involved in too many projects. If i consider this project  "one and only" in your hand then i bit definetly you will do it within 10 days.
Alas... I wished my hobby relevant to my job :( i also wana feel like you ...
Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2013, 12:23:44 AM »
The motion controllers from cncdrive.com arrived yesterday. UC300 goes into this one. UC100 is for another machine. This is going to be my first experience with cncdrive's motion controllers. I've read good reviews about it and with my experience with Balazs, I am confident that it will go along well like his other products.

Zafar
Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2013, 04:03:07 AM »
Enclosures for drives, inverters, PC, screen, keyboard etc. have arrived too. Have to cut them for cable glands, vents, cooling fans and mounting brackets. Then send them to the paint shop. Another two days work. Almost all the hardware is here. Just the bearings are remaining. Two sets of angular contact bearings and a deep groove ball bearing. Then the machining work will start for the mounting brackets.

Zafar

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Re: Prima Lathe conversion
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2013, 05:31:38 AM »
Zafar seems this time you are not using SmoothStepper ;) Can you please share the advantages of using UC100 over smoothstepper. Price of UC100?