Live tool drilling?

[Vern Smith]

I'm so uninformed about CNC lathes that all this will more then likely come across as dumb questions. I'm giving serious thought to buying a GT-10 but one of it's on going jobs would be a simple round spacer with a center hole and a series of smaller holes orbiting the center hole. Now I know on my manual lathes the only way to drill the off center orbiting holes would be to offset the piece in a 4 jaw or some other impracticable operation. I assume the CNC will be the same.

My question is can I buy off the shelf a drill motor that I can mount on the turret somehow to drill the off center holes? I'm sure I can rig something up myself but it would be a lot easier if it was available as a complete unit. I don't know for sure but there might be enough room beside the turret to mount the driller as a gang tool which would simplify establishing an electrical hook up. Would this be considered live tooling, or foolish tooling

Are bar pullers generally mounted on the turret? Are the combination puller/cutoff tools OK or the worst of both worlds?

Vern

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi Vern,

I could see how you would offset the distance from the center hole, but would you not need to have a C Axis with spindle orientation and a brake to index to each orbiting hole while the boring operations are being done.

Can't wait for the Lathe Demo!!!!!!! Bet you have have tons of uses for it.

John

[Vern Smith]

I think you are right on all of the above but I'm not sure, if I were, I would not have to ask a lot of silly questions on this forum.

I was hoping I could get away without the brake, I would not think drilling would put that much rotational pressure on the spindle to knock it off the point spindle rotation put it.

I think I've figured out a way to hold my De Walt cordless drill motor on the turret with duct tape and tie wraps. Figure I'll just turn the drill on then hit the green button on the lathe.

Vern