CNC Lathe Potpourri

[BobWarfield]

Below are a few photos of my CNC lathe project. I'm converting a Lathemaster 9x30 lathe to CNC control. It isn't done yet, but progress is being made.

Leadscrew stepper drive:



Cross slide drive is not done yet:



Got Panel?



Athlon 64 in a rackmount case I built:



Couple more images in next post...

[BobWarfield]

DC Step Motor Power Supply:



Drive electronics in matching rack mount case:



It's been a lot of work. More to come. Details available here:

http://www.thewarfields.com/MT/CCLathePotpourri.htm

Best,

BW

[Adobe Machine]

Very,very nice work..The Electronics are just super, to say the least.

Is your Z axis a ballshaft / ball nut ? How will you input spindle RPM to the controller to coordinate X-Z for threading ?

Keep up the good work and pictures..We all love em..

Adobe (old as dirt)

[Al_The_Man]

Iwas thinking of concealing the Z axis motor in the casting at the far (R.H) end and drive with timing belt.
What type of spindle motor did you put on?
Al.

[BobWarfield]

The z-axis is just a plain old ACME leadscrew at present. I may replace it with a ballscrew depending. I want to see how well it does without for comparison in any case.

Spindle tach/index is going to depend on what winds up being the requirement for the GRex. At the moment, it sounds like it could either be an encoder or a conventional pulse-style sensor. I lean towards whichever seems easier when the GRex firmware update accomodates threading sometime early next year.

Al, you could easily do as you suggest and wrap the Z-axis motor around behind on this lathe. You might even be able to hide it in the bed depending on the motor. Would make for a nice compact and clean install.

The spindle motor is a DC treadmill motor and controller of eBay. It has plenty of power, runs very smoothly, and cost all of $90. Usual gory details here:

http://www.thewarfields.com/MT/MTLatheDCMotor.htm

BTW, Al, what are your favorite sources to purchase relays, contactors, delay on make relays, and the like?

Best,

BW

PS It has been a challenge stuffing everything into the little rack enclosures. A nice big Rital NEMA box seems easy by comparison. I'll be using one of those for the mill conversion when I get done with this lathe.

[Al_The_Man]

BTW, Al, what are your favorite sources to purchase relays, contactors, delay on make relays, and the like?

Bob
I usually go to Ebay, Fuse blocks, Telemecanique Contactors are fairly cheap there, relays I prefer the Idec RH series, 24vdc with LED indicator, I usually mount everything on DIN rail, you can even get DIN rail mounted control transformers now.
This was one of the Excello's I did http://cnczone.com/forums/showthread...hlight=excello
Al.

[handlewanker]

Hi Bob, in post #1, photo #1, I hope you're going to shorten that bolt or better still use a grubscrew onto the key to hold that drive pulley to the motor.
Ian.