Utility of Tru-Trace on a lathe?

There's a lathe in my area that on the face of it meets my needs for a smaller, high quality machine. SAG12 with a DRO in supposedly great shape. However it has a True-Trace installed.

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/tld/4725041127.html

That's a hydraulic profile tracer, right? ANY utility for such a thing outside a production scenario? Do the damn things work, have they proven durable? Does the installation of one in any way mess up the lathe- can you pull it off with no major hassles or repurcussions?

For what I do I can't an ounce of utility in a tracer on a smaller "toolroom" style lathe. But what do I know (not much, haha)...

Had the factory hydraulic tracer for a 15" Colchester. I do small lots (1's &2's) and prototype work and for some things the tracer was nice to have. Shapes like balls and tapers can be run with
simple templates.
The Colchester unit mounted to the rear side of the cross slide and in that case the install was pretty simple. Clamps gripped the edge of the slide where the factory provides a sort
of dovetail "V" groove on each side of the slide. Templates are mounted on the rear or the bed and provisions were provided to work off centers (turned part) or clamps for
plate style templates.

I never got good at the setup of the tracer. Worked , but the time spent getting the first part correct was often excessive.
Also the profile that you can cut is limited. Hard 90* shoulders or grooves present following issues for the tracing probe.

Also the units are often pretty heavy, adding to the effort required to move the slide, along with adding to potential wear on the cross ways if kept on the slide when running
the lathe conventionally.

Sold the tracer and made the change...went for a Romi CNC flat bed lathe and haven' looked back since. Great for small runs and one offs....Easier to setup and run...and way more accurate.
Cheers Ross

The price seems high, but I know nothing about the value of those lathes.

The tracer set-up looks gorgeous to me. I've never seen one set-up that way. It doesn't appear to be anything other than a bolt on unit that could be easily removed.

As far as utility, I have used tracers for a few tasks. Most are add on units where you spend far more time screwing around with a template than actually making chips. The integrated template holder should make this one far quicker to use. Tracers are the hands-down fastest way to single point threads on a manual lathe. Even next to a tall shoulder you can single point threads as fast as you can reliably close the half nuts, no threading neck necessary.

I agree with alfa about grooves or diameters that are undercut causing problems but I never had problems with 90 degree shoulders except for one time it exceeded the stroke of the slide.

Hard to get an idea of the machine's condition from the photo. From its general appearance it looks like its low hours or been babied; fair to good condition is a reasonable guess.

The Sag 12 is a hell of a fine machine and the tracer can be used for lots of things besides following shape templates. There are tapers (as above), champhers, shallow face angkes, and seat angles, thread pull-outs, etc; these are only a few concepts an inventive fellow can put to use. Make a good template on the mill and repeat trun stepped shafts with fillets and champers etc can be machined quicker than on a turret lathe.

I don't know why tracer lathes don't go at a premium.

That was a very expensive tracing attachment. It should power both axis of your machine, making it easy to do O ring grooves, etc. A Sag is a great lathe. I don't think it's too much money if it is in as good of condition as it looks. There are lots of uses for the tracer, anything with a lot of roughing, rounds, tapers, copying existing parts, etc. Once you use it a little and get used to it, you might like it.

You sound like a tracer guy! Nice to know there's a few left!

I have run Mimic and Cadillac tracer attachments but they are nothing like this. I can not tell if it is all there but that is very important. This tracer is somewhat limited by a short template rail but it just depends on what your work envelope is. I like the control. Most have nothing of the kind, they either trace or retract. While the tracer can cut complex shapes the template for such will likely have to be made on a cnc machine.

That kind of two axis tracer can be unbolted from the carriage easily and you are back to a normal lathe. It has its own ways and toolblock that slide in Z and X relative to the pattern. So in use, position the carriage where you want to do the tracing, start it up and it will trace the pattern without any further motion of the carriage!

If you ever get a production quantity threading job the tracing unit can give you a controlled kickout for both external/internal/blind shoulder. This allows an inexperienced operator to run without nervous heart failure. LOL Art.

Hmmm.

Well, I'd rather pay a lot less for the machine sans True-Trace. Guess I could sell it.... anyone know what they bring? Guessing not much.

I do lots of short runs, one-offs, and prototypes and so on; a big run for me might be qty 50. I shouldn't just write off ever using a tracer, but I sure as hell don't want to pay good money for one!