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Author Topic: Verticle borer/lathe retrofit  (Read 2850 times)

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Verticle borer/lathe retrofit
« on: April 19, 2006, 05:31:29 AM »
Hi
We are looking turning a manual vertical borer/lathe over to CNC control The machine has a 36" chuck 42" max turn diameter, only 2 axis and the spindle to control. Spindle speed is slow 5 to 115 rev/min.
The question is whether Mach3 would be OK?
Looking at the forum comments and adds for Mach3 it would appear that it would be ok so long as the hard ware between the computer and the servos is man enough for the job.
We have a Mazak slant bed lathe with 6T Fanuc controller which is a mass of wires and boards but is 20 odd years old, mind you very solid, very reliable. We also have a Haas VF3 and the electrical control side is 1/3 the size (20 years of tech change).
We have down loaded Mach3 to look at and it will do what we want, mainly normal turning raidius threading.
The cost of a new machine or to get this machine upgraded/retrofitted the normal way is out of the question for us.
Best Regards
Burgs
Re: Verticle borer/lathe retrofit
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2006, 08:13:50 AM »
You should be Okay but there are many things that you are going to have to do to get it running :( you will have to put a prox on the spindle so you know when to start the thread and you are going to have to put on the servo's... Other than that it should be no problem.
Fixing problems one post at a time ;)

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