Using the Duality Lathe.

[Willyb]

Hi Guys

Interested in purchasing a Duality Lathe and wanted to ask the Guys who have purchased one to comment on it's use.

What materials have you turned and how did it perform?

Any additional thoughts on using this Lathe would be appreciated.

Thanks for your help.


Willy

[thum31]

I have seen this question several times, so far never got an answer. I can see how this setup could be useful but I don't want to be the first....

[Willyb]

I understand that Tormach have sold some of these Lathes, so I guess either the owners did not noticed my message or they are shy?

Willy

[LENS_CAD]

I have the Duality Lathe but I haven't used it yet. I have been too busy with other conventional milling projects, hopefully sometime this year.

Len

[cheetahcnc]

Willy,

Have you seen this video?

YouTube - Duality Lathe

YouTube - Duality Lathe

I found it today and am pretty impressed with it.

Jim

[cheetahcnc]

Willy,

You might find this function interesting. Not a Duality, but definitely a Tormach lathe function which many CNC mill users can apply.

YouTube - Tormach PCNC 1100 Vertical Lathe

YouTube - Tormach PCNC 1100 Vertical Lathe

Jim

[MichaelHenry]

Originally Posted by Willyb I understand that Tormach have sold some of these Lathes, so I guess either the owners did not noticed my message or they are shy?

I've answered that question once or twice and never got a response so I stopped answering.

[Willyb]

Hi Len, Jim & Mike

Len
Hope you get a chance to try out your new Duality Lathe soon. I am not sure if I could contain myself for that long without trying it out. I guess you have been really busy.

Jim
Yes I have seen both of these Video. The Tormach one really gives you a good idea what this machine is capable of. The second Video is very interesting and shows you what can be done if you put your mined to it. Good job.

Mike
Sorry I missed your replies on the Duality Lathe. Do you have any idea when it was you posted your message ? I will try a search.


I ordered my Duality Lathe on Tuesday of this week and it is suppose to be delivered on Monday. I am looking forward to using this CNC Lathe as I have never used one before. Some of the neat features of the Control Software that comes with the Duality Lathe is it's ability to perform turning operations without having to go to CAD/CAM I think the VisiCycle and Wizards are going to be used allot around my Shop. The ability to pick an operation, enter in a few numbers and be machining that item in a matter of a few minutes is going to be wonderful.

Regards
Willy

[MichaelHenry]

Originally Posted by Willyb Mike Sorry I missed your replies on the Duality Lathe. Do you have any idea when it was you posted your message ? I will try a search.

See this thread, though there may have been others here or on the Yahoo group.

Since that thread I attempted to make a small model engine IC valve out of SS303 and a 3/4-10 thread in aluminum. Neither was successful. I had my tool tables messed up for the valve and that probably explained the problem there or it may have been the way I set up the ops in SprutCAM. I never got back to it but will sometime down the road.

The 3/4-10 thread got munged on the last few passes when the motor stalled and that was done with one of the wizards. I was using 0.002" depth of cut for each pass on the threads and the motor just didn't seem up to the task as the cutter started taking deeper cuts. I finished the job on my manual mill with 2 HP motor but next time I'd try doing it in two ops - the first about 75-80% of the way through with 0.002" DOC per pass and the second with 0.001" DOC for the remainder, maybe even 0.0005" DOC.

SprutCAM seems to work pretty well with it once the tool geometry is set up properly in the (SprutCAM) tool tables and the turning wizards are pretty good. Note though, that there is bug in the threading wizard and it won't thread tapers that are fractional angles, like NPT threads.

Aside from wanting a stand-alone, 5C capable Tormach CNC lathe, I'm satisfied and happy with the Duality. You just need to be willing to accept it's limitations.

BTW, the QC toolpost works really well though you will want stub drill bits in the larger sizes as the Z travel is somewhat limited unless you mount the lathe on the far left side of the table and you have really short work pieces. I've yet to re-mount the lathe so I don't know how well it will re-register on the table but the system looks good to me in principle.

At this point my biggest issue is with the motor HP, though the spindle may not be capable of taking much more power. I'd still buy another, FWIW.

Mike

[Willyb]

Thanks Mike for your thoughts on the Duality CNC Lathe. Looks like there is a learning curve similar to the Mill. I was thinking that it might be simpler to use but I think any time you introduce multiple Tools it takes some learning for sure.

What model engine are you building?

Take care.

Regards
Willy

[MichaelHenry]

The learning curve is short for simple stuff especially if you just use one tool or manually touch off on tool changes. I was having trouble getting the Mach3 tool tables set up and synched with the SprutCAM tables and then lost my custom SprutCAM library when I upgraded SprutCAM to a newer build. Note: Always keep a back up of your SprutCAM tool library or name them to something other than the default library name.

The Mach3 turn wizards are pretty simple to use but I haven't tried the VisiCycle stuff yet. The SprutCAM turn ops seemed surprisingly easy to pick up to me but I've only done basic stuff so far and not much of it at that.

I'm working on Jerry Howell's V-Twin, but very slowly. Terry Mayhugh is close to finishing his and it looks gorgeous (he has photos in the Yahoo Photos section).

Mike

[Willyb]

Hi Guys

I ordered my Duality Lathe on May 5 and it arrived safe and sound (Fedex) on May 11 to Ontario, Canada. It was in good shape and well packaged. First of all the Lathe is placed inside a heavy Cardboard box that is internally lined with a high density foam cut to fit snugly around the Lathe to prevent it from moving around inside the box. The ends of this box are lined with a sheets of Plywood. The top Foam insert holds the Chip Tray (for manual Lathe work) and is the first thing you see when opening this box. After this box is tapped shut a sheet of Plywood goes on the top & bottom with the whole assembly secured with metal band strapping. This complete assembly is than installed in a second well tapped Cardboard box. The package arrived intact and did not show any signs of abused. I will have more when I remove the Lathe.

Willy