aliasgar_1989
Plastic
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2011
- Location
- india maharashtra pune
i have this conventional lathe which we have in our workshop for quite some years now and one day i read this article in a magazine convert your lathe to low cost cnc which got me quite excited since the lathe had been lying idle for quite some time and a retrofitted cnc would help to experiment with new ideas. I mailed this particular company for a quotation for my lathe with bed width of 9inches and length of 40inches and the quotation i got was a shock they quoted me Rs.3,50,000 which converts to around $7600 which was way beyond my budget i just couldnt afford it so i started searching the net for other companies who would provide me a reasonable retrofitting kit or plans for the same and havent been successful as of yet but in the process i hit upon many do it yourself cnc retrofit suggestions and plans like dak engineers & sterlingsteele but the thing is they all talk about mini lathe conversions so i said lets gather a little more info on cnc retrofit kits and i figured out quite a few things but i still need help for eg. like should i use stepper motors instead of servo since my budget is low and what should the torque range be or what nema motor should i use should i buy stepper motors with dual shaft and use an encoder for feedback and what about the leadscrew should i do away with them and replace them with ball screws or i could use them and what about the motor on the cross slide and i do get few jobs for threading so how to fix an encoder on the spindle in all i am still a novice when it comes to retrofitting and have no idea what to do with a small pocket i cant afford $7600 and i have been sitting around quite a few days browsing for the same so i thought of asking in this forum for suggestions and ideas hope there is someone out there who can help