Hi Vicke,
We have much in common as I also came to Mach for use as a controlling program for running a Lathe at a hobby level. Mach Turn dose a nice job of doing it. I tried the latest developement version of Mach along with the SS plug tonight and all I need is to have the backlash compensation done and a "winning" combination is in place. I think that will be in the near future.
I wish more people like yourself would jump in as there got to be more than just a handfull out there.
You underestimate the trend on CNC lathe users as you will not be a minority in the near future. The CNC lathe with software is here. But the software available for the hobbiest is few and far between in both price and functionality.
Will you pay? Sure, just like the milling, but at least you already have a controller along with functional wizards which provides almost instant capability. They didn't even exist just a short time ago. Now if you want to progress,
namely turning profiles, then Lazycam will do it within limits. You want to get fancier, just pay! But then if Lazyturn
becomes a reality, you just may have something that you won't find anywhere else for the price.
So you realy didn't have to pay to play on the lathe. Just needed a fork and knife to be able to eat.
You can always learn to program the lathe code, but for me, that would be like eating with my fingers!
RIGHT OR WRONG?
;)RICH