Didn't really see a newbie forum...

[Spitlebug]

Alright folks please bear with me. I plan on putting the money and time into this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'd hate to have to re-invent the wheel so to speak.

I'm looking at buying a small-ish manual lathe that I fully intend to convert to CNC. Initially my budget will be for the manual machine alone. My budget will be in the $1,500-3,000 range. I want to turn and thread pieces of no larger than 2" in diameter and perhaps the odd block using a four jaw chuck.

Now I have been looking at some models such as Grizzly G9972Z 11" x 26" Lathe or Grizzly G4003 12" x 24" Lathe. The G9972Z is a left hand feed unit only. Would that be an issue for a CNC conversion? Also, being that the G4002 is a Gap Bed is that going to effect the rigidity of the lathe at all? Can someone suggest a better alternative to the two said units. I would prefer single phase as that's what is commonly available in my area and most importantly cost effective for me.

Now on to the CNC stuff. CNC isn't really my forte. I am confident that I can learn to program the required code and or use CAM programs as I am a draftsman and I have taken a plethora of programming courses for writing applications and it can't be much harder than programming ASM. I need some help with the hardware aspect.

I understand that stepper motors are the cheaper alternative. Ideally I would like to achieve as high of precision and repeatability as possible though +/- 0.001" would be sufficient in both regards. Can someone point me in the direction of a suitable set of steppers, breakout boards, spindle speed controls and the like?

Thanks all,

Brenden Gansner aka Spitlebug

[blackbeard52]

Spitlebug
Welcome to the Zone.... The lathes you have chosen can and probably have been converted by some here in this forum. Many have converted the 8X12 and 9X20 so not much difference there. As for the gap bed I dont recall anyone posting a conversion. However the sky is the limit here. My point is buy what you need and invent ways to convert it. Most of the failed conversions are due to old or obsolete equipment that many cannot or have not gotten thier hands on. As for size of motors and electronics Steppers are the most widely used as they are the easiest to configure and cheaper. But have high speed limitations, so you have to use higher pitches in screws i.e 5thp 2start. or gear them so the screw turns faster than the motor shaft.

It is understood that you have a mill or a way to machine the conversion components, otherwise the conversion will be very difficult.

Good luck with the build
Bob