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how to automate my lathe

escapethewrmhole

Aluminum
Joined
Dec 10, 2017
You can do better than $100k on a robot for sure our OB7MAX12 was about half that and is doing exactly what you need to do.

Anything else is going to nickle and dime you until you hit that number anyways.

 

Orange Vise

Titanium
Joined
Feb 10, 2012
Location
California
You can do better than $100k on a robot for sure our OB7MAX12 was about half that and is doing exactly what you need to do.
Nice setup!

Yes, 100k is on the high side. Our UR10e was about 60k all-in. The 100k I referenced earlier was for a much heavier-duty Yaskawa HC20 (70k before add-ons) that could serve other functions down the road due to its 20kg weight capacity (30kg+ if you limit usage of the wrist pivot and elbow rotation joints).

That said, this thread got me interested in coming up with a better solution. Our UR is overkill for our lathe apps and I think I can build a cartesian robot for about 1/4 the cost, controlled by Arduino and Clearpath servos.
 

EmGo

Diamond
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Location
Over the River and Through the Woods
That said, this thread got me interested in coming up with a better solution. Our UR is overkill for our lathe apps and I think I can build a cartesian robot for about 1/4 the cost, controlled by Arduino and Clearpath servos.

If you feel like taking a chance, can get you in operation in less than a month for even less money ...

 

EmGo

Diamond
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Location
Over the River and Through the Woods
A little more info - looks like 5' reach and 20 lb load (that probably includes whatever end effector you add) for under five thou, has teach pendant thingy ... should we pursue ? I'm not up on robot prices but seemed pretty cheap. Videos look decent.

Different models have different hand/wrist ? axes, but this one gives a general idea. Looks fairly sturdy ...

redrobo.jpg
 
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604Pook

Cast Iron
Joined
Sep 14, 2022
What you need is two anchor points behind and inline with your spindle. One that moves with the sub, and one that stays put.

You run a "dead" liner up into the sub. This is anchored to the moveable anchoring point. I like pvc for this. You start with the biggest pvc that will fit, and if you are running small D parts, then you bush it down to the closest pipe size that will work. The closer the better as you can let parts get beside others and jam it up. And the smallest tube needs to go as close as you can get to the back of the collet without rubbing when the collet is closed and empty.

Of course your part needs to be of a shape that allows it to push the previous parts.

Next you put the next larger size pipe over the dead liner. It is anchored to the sheetmetal superstructure so that it doesn't move. This tube will run up to the back of the collet closer / spindle, and then back further to an unload point.

The inner (dead) tube has to stick out the back long enough so that when the sub is all the way fwd that it doesn't pull out of the outter tube.

Now your new part just pushes the other gradually out the back, and they drop into a tray or ??? Be aware that you could git some coolant out the back as well. It takes some time to develop your system.

Any parts that will work that way, that's what we doo. If the parts won't stack w/o jamming, then we drop'm in the chip conveyor and sort later.


-----------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

A family friend, owned a business making small stamped parts on contracts for bigger companies... he automated everything with the simplest of techniques and this is exactly something he would do. Simple, cheap and effective.
 

wmpy

Hot Rolled
Joined
Dec 16, 2011
Pretty cool what a 50 cent chip can do these days. I've had a $20 Pico based controller with a touchscreen U/I running my shop's air system for the last 6 months.
Can I get more info on this please?
 

Garwood

Diamond
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Location
Oregon
Can I get more info on this please?
20230222_173625.jpg

What you see there on that piece of cardboard is a Raspberry pi Pico, an analog to digital converter chip, a 0-5v pressure transducer, a pair of solid state relays and a tiny color touch screen display. The pico is on the end of that 5v plug. It's the size of my thumbnail.

The touchscreen display is from a Kuereg i believe. It was the biggest expense, about $30 shipped from China.

It took us a few months of on and off trying stuff to fully crack the consumer touchscreen protocol.

The pressure displayed is exactly half of actual. I stole the pressure transducer and swapped it with a bigger one without updating firmware.

It's the PIPSI or PI-psi

Oh, forgot to say the relays are controlling a pair of invertek VFD'S.
 
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Comatose

Titanium
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Location
Akron, OH
In retrospect do you find that wrangling with the touch screen was worth the trouble versus a $5 keypad and a $10 character LCD display with an i2c backpack?
 

Garwood

Diamond
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Location
Oregon
In retrospect do you find that wrangling with the touch screen was worth the trouble versus a $5 keypad and a $10 character LCD display with an i2c backpack?

That isn't the end result. We needed to run a small touchscreen with python that we could flush mount. No such thing available. So we figured it out. The air compressor controller was just an application that runs everyday so we could see how it holds up.
 








 
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