Grizzly G0602 10x22 Lathe Conversion

[Steelpolish]

Finally getting time to work on this again. I finished machining the automatic turret base, and hopefully tomorrow I will finish the piston and the rest of the components for the turret.

Also, I have changed my electronics a bit. Instead of the Xylotex board and power supply, I am going to use the Gecko G203V drivers, and a nice 48 volt power supply from Antek. All of these components should be able to fit in my computor case I have choosen for this project. I have seen other people install thier cnc drivers and components inside of a computor case - does anyone know if this ever causes an interference problem?

Pics enclosed are of the turret base.

[Mike Ray]

You can grab one of these

http://www.factorymation.com/s.nl/it.A/id.4205/.f

or something close here

http://www.factorymation.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.4845/.f

that will be a better choice for enclosure. Get the backing plate that goes with it.

I am running the G0602 - great machine for the money. I'll be watching this thread also !!

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hM5ks62_vY&feature=related"]YouTube- G0602 5T Cut.wmv

Mike

[Steelpolish]

Today I received my Gecko drives and new power supply. I also hooked up the Z axis - it spins smooth! Work is almost completed on the automatic turret.

[SpeedsCustom]

Yes! Very cool

[Steelpolish]

Today was a productive day finally. I was able to wire up all the electronics in an extra computor case I had laying around. Everything is hooked up and working correctly (first time to, imagine that!). I am amazed at how fast and how much smoother the geckos and new power supply run the steppers. Way better than the Xylotex board. If anyone needs a brand new 3 axis Xylotex board and power supply, pm me and will sell it much cheaper than Xylotex (like almost half off). Work on the turret is almost finished, but its been so cold out here in Oregon, I decided to insulate and drywall my shop, so no work can be done until thats finished. Hopefully next week I can resume that.

Say, if anyone was wondering what we do, our website is: www.customholesaw.com

[Steelpolish]

I have an idea I want to run by to see if anyone has an opinion:

I have a manual lathe, and the chips are always gumming up the bed slides. What if I mounted my Grizzly at a 45 degree angle, making it a slant bed lathe? I am planning to enclose the lathe, and install a coolent pump, so mounting it at an angle would be simple if I am building a base for it anyway. Pros or cons?

[Steelpolish]

No one has any opinions on my slantbed idea?

At any rate, my shop is now completed so its back to work on this project. The automatic turret is almost complete, I just have to assemble it and test it. Does anyone know how to write macros for a toolchange?

[john huijben]

How are you planning to rotate the lathe,
I can imagine that its a bit fiddly to load a workpiece and see at what you're doing if you rotate the lathe away from where you're standing (so you're standing at the higher side of the lathe), and rotating the other side will cause al lot of chips heading towards your tool.
perhaps it's possible to rotate the lathe towards you, like a normal cnc lathe, and mount the tool holder at the other side of the crossslide?
Very interesting idea, don't know if the x axis will like it though

[Steelpolish]

Thats one detail I left out - I am mounting the tool turret on the back side of the lathe spindle, mainly to direct coolent and chips to the back of the lathe and not on the window (I am going to enclose this lathe). So the lathe itself will be rotated towards the operator at a 45 degree angle, and mounting the work peices will be simple, but aligning the toolholders will be a little bit harder. This lathe will mainly be used as a production lathe to make hole saw arbors, so once the toolholders are set, we should be good to go. As far as the X axis, at a 45 degree angle, there will be some gravitational pull on it, but the whole thing doesnt really weigh much to begin with. The Nema 23 motors that I am using are 425 oz of torque, so they shouldnt even grunt pulling the X axis up (hopefully!).

[john huijben]

Sounds like a good idea to me, if the motor is having a hard time because of the 45 degree angle you can always make a counter weight that pulls the crossslide upwards like some milling machines have for the Z-axis

[Steelpolish]

I never thought of a counter weight, that should do the trick if the motor struggles. We shall see.....

[compunerdy]

Cool ideas.. I will be enclosing my C4 as well. Will be interesting to see how the slant bed works for you.