Winter project

[Adrian Harris]

I had a little time to play yesterday whilst the missus was out on a shopping jolly, so I thought I'd have a go at getting the lathe to turn a curved shape.

This was the result after a little trial and error :

I'm removing most of the material with parting tool cuts, then using the arc to smooth out the steps. There is still some angularity to it, but I'm not sure if that is from the cuts I'm making or the resolution of the steppers in the lathe.

Tonight I'll try making the step cuts shorter, so that the arc cut has to remove more material. Hopefully then I can put this together with the rest of the program and end up with a bunch of hob caps

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

> Wish I had room and $$ for a CNC version

The lathe itself is 24" x 30", plus the PC to run it.

It cost me 1300ukp, so about 2000usd, bought through a UK CNC machining forum.

I had most of the parts needed for the conversion from an earlier aborted attempt at making a CNC router, and I'm using as much of the internal electronics etc to help keep the cost down.

It's quite limited in the size of the work piece it can handle, but for these sorts of repetitive tasks it's ideal.

Adrian.

[Stephen White]

Great stuff Adrian, enjoy the Pz III, it's a great kit for detail. CNC and CAD skills - I'm awestruck.

I love the idea of "hob caps" - that takes the biscuit. Can't wait to see "Hub knobs" and coffee.

S

[Adrian Harris]

Strangely enough, there's no CAD involved, so far. It's all been written manually in gEdit, hence the resultant trial and error

I tried some of the available CAD programs, but couldn't find one with a post-processor which would handle the lathe properly - 3D routing seems to be the target market for all this software.

Da*mned Firefox spell-checker - must've had a cuppa in mind when I wrote that

Adrian.

[Stephen White]

Spoll chuck!

Have you looked at Design Spark Mechanical? It's free and relatively intuitive.

Stephen

[Adrian Harris]

Oddly enough I've looked at Design Spark for circuit design, but not for CAD/CAM.

Adrian.