Michael Moore
Titanium
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2004
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
In the current thread on CNC knee mills this comment was made:
"I wish there was a CNC lathe that was the equivilent of the 5k machining center while a little dated and slow and no tool changer was not beat to death.. That is something i might have a use for."
Buying a running and useable $5K or under CNC mill, or converting a manual mill, seems a moderately straightforward and common undertaking. CNC lathes appear to me to be a more complicated deal, but that could be due to my limited knowledge of them. I don't see much conversion/retrofit info on lathes compared to mills. Since only two axes are needed why isn't a lathe a third easier to convert than a mill?
Ready to go CNC lathes seem to jump from an Emco Compact type of trainer/desktop lathe (one of them was offered here in the Bay Area recently by someone in the model engine club) to a complicated/expensive to repair/maintain aged industrial lathe that may be beaten to death.
I briefly considered the Emco as it had very little use (this wasn't the slant bed version which is what I think Alan/wrench has) but for the price that was being asked it looked like a really small work envelope that might not be as useful as I'd hope for the price that was asked.
Setting aside the difficulties that Damon has had with his Hardinge retrofit
what can the home shop/small shop person realistically get for that $5K investment? Let's presume that it is a pretty basic machine without a lot of whiz/bang tooling attachments that would be finicky to maintain. Something that would let a person add some swoopy inside/outside radii to a part, or make 4-5 identical parts if there was a need. I guess a spindle sensor would be needed for threading, and constant surface speed sounds like a nice feature but might be out of consideration in this price range.
It sounds like old CNC lathe controls may be more finicky than old CNC mill controls. I don't know if that is only the case in lathes with tool changers, powered tailstocks, parts catchers etc, or if it is true in general.
I'd think the usual advantages apply to a control conversion on an existing CNC lathe vs converting a manual machine - you've already got motors (and mounts), ball screws, hopefully the lathe is made beefier and to a higher quality for the heavier speeds and cuts, etc. But if you could get something with a working control you could maybe work with that until it has a fatal problem that would be uneconomic to fix.
Something in a minimum 10x24 size would seem to be needed to make it reasonably versatile.
So are used CNC lathes in this price range unlikely to be a realistic proposition? If so, what's the likely minimum range to be - $10K? I see that base price on a Haas TL-1 is $20K, but I presume that probably needs $5-10K in options before it would be really useable.
cheers,
Michael
"I wish there was a CNC lathe that was the equivilent of the 5k machining center while a little dated and slow and no tool changer was not beat to death.. That is something i might have a use for."
Buying a running and useable $5K or under CNC mill, or converting a manual mill, seems a moderately straightforward and common undertaking. CNC lathes appear to me to be a more complicated deal, but that could be due to my limited knowledge of them. I don't see much conversion/retrofit info on lathes compared to mills. Since only two axes are needed why isn't a lathe a third easier to convert than a mill?
Ready to go CNC lathes seem to jump from an Emco Compact type of trainer/desktop lathe (one of them was offered here in the Bay Area recently by someone in the model engine club) to a complicated/expensive to repair/maintain aged industrial lathe that may be beaten to death.
I briefly considered the Emco as it had very little use (this wasn't the slant bed version which is what I think Alan/wrench has) but for the price that was being asked it looked like a really small work envelope that might not be as useful as I'd hope for the price that was asked.
Setting aside the difficulties that Damon has had with his Hardinge retrofit
It sounds like old CNC lathe controls may be more finicky than old CNC mill controls. I don't know if that is only the case in lathes with tool changers, powered tailstocks, parts catchers etc, or if it is true in general.
I'd think the usual advantages apply to a control conversion on an existing CNC lathe vs converting a manual machine - you've already got motors (and mounts), ball screws, hopefully the lathe is made beefier and to a higher quality for the heavier speeds and cuts, etc. But if you could get something with a working control you could maybe work with that until it has a fatal problem that would be uneconomic to fix.
Something in a minimum 10x24 size would seem to be needed to make it reasonably versatile.
So are used CNC lathes in this price range unlikely to be a realistic proposition? If so, what's the likely minimum range to be - $10K? I see that base price on a Haas TL-1 is $20K, but I presume that probably needs $5-10K in options before it would be really useable.
cheers,
Michael