On 2008-09-25, Vernon wrote:
While I am fascinated by machining I have neither skill nor experience
as a machinist. Therefore, I will appreciate your help.

I am considering buying an Emco Compact 5 lathe with mill as a gift
for my son. I don't know what generation the machine is. However,
this is not a CNC capable machine.

O.K. The color can give some clues as to vintage. The older
ones are International orange, and the newer ones are bright red within
those which were made as CNC machines.

Will we regret not finding a machine that has the CNC capability? Or
is this the appropriate place to start.

Anyone *should* learn on a manual machine prior to every trying
to program a CNC machine -- just to have a better feel for what the
machine is capable of before asking the dumb robot to do things which
the machine can't handle.

Note that there are versions of the same lathe which *are* CNC,
both ones using a built-in (but limited) CPU, and ones which are driven
from a PC (which was a bit faster at the time). One advantage of
starting with the manual Compact-5 and then moving to a CNC version of
the same machine is that a certain percentage of the tooling will work
with both machines.

There was also a "F1" CNC mill with the same vintage of
controller CPU as the Compact-5/CNC lathe.

I've got the Compact-5/CNC lathe (but not the "F1 mill"), and I
use it for some things, and my older, larger Clausing manual lathe for
other things -- so it is good to have both around.



My son is studying chemistry
and has an inventor's genius.

Then he should enjoy the manual Compact-5 and learn well from
it.

Send him here for extra guidance.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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