On Mon, 16 May 2011 07:28:14 -0500, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:

Karl Townsend fired this volley in
:

Have you looked at buying a dead CNC lathe? It does take searching but
you'll be way closer to your goal. I'm partial to Hardinge because so
dang many were made twenty years ago.

That said, looks like a decent enough import lathe. I'd have a design
concept in mind for your ball screws and stepper/servos before you
buy.


I have looked, Karl, but two things stop me. Most of the used CNC machines
I'd have access to (say, in a 200 mile circle of me) are darned-well USED,
and not in stellar condition.

Also, I cannot do the tax re-capture single-year amortization of a used
machine. Buying new gets me an ROI of about 16 months.

The guys at Mach Motion have already done a nice conversion of exactly the
same model lathe of a different badge. I'm not overly impressed with the
Mach3 control, which apparently has trouble doing threading unless you buy
the (additional) MachMotion $2550 stand-alone motion controller that goes
between Mach3 and the drivers.

I'm pretty certain that Iggy has proven EMC will do it without all that
additional computing power and unsupportable embedded proprietary code.

However, since they've converted a lathe that is mechanically identical to
the Shop Fox, I assume it's not to ugly mechanically -- and heck! I'll
have the lathe working in manual mode to do the work G.


LLoyd

How about starting with a Lancer lathe? i see a fella here offering a
project lathe cheap. And you wouldn't have to take it apart first
VBG I bet he'd find you some ball screws and servo motors to sweeten
the deal.

Seriously, that would make one hell of a lathe.

Karl