What Will I Love About a CNC Lathe?

[SteveHGraham]

I guess I should have asked this by now. Once I have my CNC mini-lathe running, and I actually get it to create parts, what should I be looking forward to the most? What will this thing do that will make me love it?

I have been looking forward to cutting curves, and I was also hoping it would make threading easier. I haven't thought very far past that.

[ctwo]

You are so gonna love manually programming two thousand lines of g-code to make a few Chess pieces.

Then, you are really going to enjoy learning how to create 2D shapes and you will certainly rejoice when you conquer the 3D modeling software.

Once you've wrestled with CAM software for a bit (because now manually writing g-code has become a chore), you will consider writing your own post-processor to compile g-code the way your system needs it.

Oh, and the first crash. It's one of those things you look back on with great humor.

The very very best part though is telling your wife how much you spent building your CNC. Make sure you've finished the Chess set though...

[SteveHGraham]

I had to look that up. I found a Youtube of a big Mori making a rook.

It had a ridiculous turret with tons of attachments. I particularly liked the little milling attachment that cut the slots in the top of the rook.

Guess I won't have one of those on a 7x 14, however.

[ctwo]

That was suite, wasn't it? Whenever I get frustrated and ready to throw in the towel, I cue up that video and I'm ready for more...

DrDavo is logging his CNC build in the CNC forum.

[hanermo]

What I love, is being able to make high accuracy parts, easily, by just doing a very small incremental cut.

I made a 17.005 mm bore for a 50 teeth HTD pulley, for a ballscrew pulley in my bridgeport.

I find I can easily and consistenly make cuts in the few micron(s) range.
I mean less than 0.01 mm is easy.
I use ccmt tools and work mostly in steel.

Another thing I like is being able to make (long) tapers for handles, easily.
Look really nice, esp. in stainless.

[spinningwheels]

Do you realy need cnc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h38I6Qq ... vGTMCioMtw

[SteveHGraham]

Remind me to thank God I'm an American.

[GlennW]

I got to thinking...

Have you considered playing with simulation software?

Just make your drawings or models with your CAD program, choose a CAM program to generate the G-code, and then feed it to the simulation software and make parts on your PC.

That'll definitely give you a better understanding of how CNC works, and by the time your machine is up and running, you should have it all figured out!

The usual 30 day trial period, and reasonably priced if you like it.

For milling and turning.

http://www.cutviewer.com/

[SteveHGraham]

For fifty bucks I'd be all over it. For $340, I can wait.