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covert manual to cnc lathe

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Cast Iron
Joined
May 1, 2002
Location
NL
hi
I have a small 11" lathe that has no trail stock (long story)anyway I use it to make small plastic and teflon parts ~100 per month.
I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to convert this machine to CNC.
I do not need to thread on this machine or hold close tolerances. +/- 0.005" is ok
Plans,books etc that may help would be greatly appreciated.
It's going to be a winter project during the slow days in the shop
eddie
 
Check out the website for a company in Atlanta Ga. The company is Micro Kinetics. I am not sure of the spelling, but your search engine should come up with them. We use there products alot here and I did see in their catalog where they had converted a small lathe to cnc control.
 
Eddie,
Long story short....

It would be cheaper to buy a used CNC than to retrofit your lathe into one.

Retrofitting is best done to a machine which was designed from the start to be CNC, but might need new controls, or more capabilities

Humbe Opinion Expressed
Sean
 
Agree with Sean. Unless you just want to do it for the "fun" of it, it would be ~much~ more cost effective to buy a used cnc lathe. In the right place at the right time, you could get a perfectly good mid 1980's cnc lathe for $2,500 (really !) on the east coast anyway. You could get a late 1970's one for ~200 bucks~ (still serious) and retrofit that instead.
 








 
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