Software for Lathe-Type operations on a CNC Mill

[Russ Kaiser]

I would like to try turning a piece of wood held in a collet in my mill spindle and move it against a stationary tool or tools fastened to my bed. Does anyone know of a software package that will calculate the tool path for this? Has anyone else tried this?

Thanks,

Russ

[Hans_G]

CamBam (CamBam CNC Software) recently added a lathe MOP just like you are describing. You can use it 40 times for free to see if it meets your needs. It would be a good idea to read the tutorials to get up to speed, the cambam forums have some examples of lathe MOPs people have run.

[Russ Kaiser]

Thanks for the tip Hans, I looked at the Cam Bam site and it looks interesting. Free to try is very good and I see that it not that expensive either.

I started messing with hand drawing some tool paths to feed into Ace Converter. You have to be careful because all the movement should stay in the ZX or ZY plane, depending on what axis your tool is pointing, and Z turns into the tradition X axis on a lathe BUT it is inverted.

So if my part had an x length of 4 inches, X=0 would translate to Z=-4 and X=4 would translate into Z=0. Very tricky. If I try this, I will camp out with the mill with my hand on the E-Stop!

Russ

[Anokiernan]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d2AcT_rJig"]YouTube - Taig Mill Turning with lathe conversion[/nomedia]

I did something similar with my taig long ago. Although per your comment above, Z remains the same whether your programming on a CNC lathe or using a converted mill, which is actually quite convenient. I suggest using Y as your lathe X. Typically mills have more X travel than Y, so you can gang more tools up in the X axis than you could ever in the Y. Then you drive the Y axis as your lathe X. The tricky part is finding your tools' centers. Unfortunately I can't help in regards to the programming suite, I ended up hand coding my first attempts. I don't see any reason why you couldn't post out Y moves instead of X's for your gcode and then write a tool change macro to command the machine to each of the tool's X centers when needed. Best of luck!

[Russ Kaiser]

Although per your comment above, Z remains the same whether your programming on a CNC lathe or using a converted mill, which is actually quite convenient.

Thanks for the tip, Anokierman. never having messed with a CNC lathe, I had no idea that z was the axis going through the chuck. I assumed that would be X. I am still right about inverting Z, I take it, since it is the work moving and not the tool. If there is lathe software that does that, that would be the ticket.

[Anokiernan]

Thanks for the tip, Anokierman. never having messed with a CNC lathe, I had no idea that z was the axis going through the chuck. I assumed that would be X. I am still right about inverting Z, I take it, since it is the work moving and not the tool. If there is lathe software that does that, that would be the ticket.

On a typical CNC lathe, Z- is towards the chuck, X0. is at the center of the workpiece and X+ extends outward towards the diameter of the part. So your Z values will be exactly the same on either type of machine, since your Z axis will lower to traverse towards the chuck or collet. The one thing to note is that most CNC lathes work with X values as diameters, so X1 equals a diameter of 1 (inch or mm depending on units used). Using a mill on the other hand will be commanding the machine with X as a radius, so commanding X1. will result in a 2. radius.