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| Lathe to mill conversion |
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| ibuildstuff4u:
I was in the shop tonight staring at my CNC lathe and started thinking about an easy way to convert it to a CNC mill until I get the funds to build a dedicated mill. Grizzly is selling a milling attachment for the 9X20 lathe for $159.00 which would give me a Y travel of 4 5/8" I can pull off my tool changer by simply removing two bolts and one wire connector and then bolt on the milling attachment. Add a stepper motor to the milling attachment and wire it so you can just plug it into the tool changer connector. Then set up a profile in Mach 3 Mill to use the Z, X and now new Y axis as a milling machine and make chips! My lathe already has three stepper drives and could easily run the new Y axis by just changing the driver profile. The total project cost would be around $225.00 for the milling attachment and extra stepper motor. The travels wouldn't be the best and I would have to be careful on the amount of weight I add to the X axis, but I think it would work. What do you think? Dale P. |
| jamoni:
I've run a very similar setup on my little chinese manual lathe. Works fine. You're milling area is very limited, but within that limitation it was satisfactory. |
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