Hello, i have began building my own little cnc lathe about a month ago. This far i have made few parts for the tool changer and gathered some hardware from ebay. When finished, this lathe will have the following specs (which may change)

Movements (X+Z): 100mm (200mm dia) and 300-400mm
Spindle motor: 2½hp 130VDC (probably)
Feed motors: 2.2Nm (X) and 6.5Nm (Z) with suitable belt drive.
Tool turret: electro-pneumatic fully automatic 8-station.
Coolant: 6.6l/min with 10l tank
Weight: 150-250kg (cast iron frame)

Wow, that's looking very nice indeed! - I want an ATC for my bridgeport ... A project for easter perhaps!

Very tasty looking... I was considering building a lathe instead of a mill, but then I realised

a) I can use a lathe with a reasonable degree of accuracy, but not a mill

b) I could make a lathe (or parts for) with my mill, but not the other way around.

I've started a up a 'project account' with my bank, any money I spend comes out of it, any money I earn through projects goes into it. When theres more in there than I initially started with and have a mill, I'll look at lathes.

The main tool holder body is now finished. It took little under one day to turn it and whole day to mill, drill and tap it. I began with some ugly looking rusty steel block which i fount from school and ended up with really nice-looking machined part.

wow.... looks good man. Wish I had time/tools to do that sorta stuff.

btw, if someone is interested, here is a small article of my workshop http://www.loisteputki.liitin.net/TLP/verstasengl.html

If there is something too big to do, i'll do it at school where is bigger machines.

Hello there to all.

The toolholder looks nice, probably small ? What size it is ?
I am also looking to start a cnc lathe. I have some experience, since I made 2 machines before, a plasma cutter and a router. So if you need some help, just ask.

Any ideias on the spindle ? That is my main concern to do the lathe. Also a live tooling hold be very nice ...

Filipe

The tool holder will get some separate holder blocks for external/internal tooling like big cnc lathes. The tool shank can be anything smaller than 12mm. For internal tools, drills and such, the shank can be up to 16mm. if needed, maybe more. The tool holder body has 140mm OD. I was thinking to buy the spindle housing, bearings and the spindle itself as a "spare part" for my quantum 210x400 manual lathe, so i don't have to make my custom spindle.

Spring holders for the tool changer are now finished.



I also got a better coolant pump from a floor washing machine, it is USA-made 24v 10l/min diaphragm type pump. The small pump in the front of the picture is 6.6l/min from biltema which seems to be more like a toy than useful. Also there is a 10l container for coolant reservoir.

Tools and stepper motors from Arc-eurotrade came. 220ncm ones. The shipping for 9kg package was 44£ which is in my opinion, a bit high. But i ordered late evening on thursday and got the package around middle of the day today. So the shipping was really fast.

I have finished an aluminium plate for the toolchanger frame. The piece in the right is a exercise done with school VMC.

Test fitting of X-axis stepper motor and ballscrew.

Here is a pillow block for X-axis ballscrew.

Looking good!

I have some updates on my machine which I need to post up.

I fount a nice enclosure for electric stuff from the scrap container at school (540x800x200mm). Also bought a 15" monitor cheaply from a friend.



Ballnut carrier almost finished, so a time for a testfit.

Hardware worth of 50€ came from www.ruuvi.net webstore. Also i got a 24v / 3.5A transformer which will be used for coolant pump power supply.

Here comes the heavy metal! I bought about 63.5kg of steel plate which cost me 135€ with cutting. I'll get few 6m lenghts of steel maybe on the next week too. I also bought vibration dampeners for the machine. These were a bit expensive for me at 7€ each.. i hope they are good quality.

Much progress on this project. I cut the steel for frame and machined one of the big steel plates with VMC @ school. It took a little under two workdays and there was around 3kg (6.6lbs) of chips removed. I also bought X-axis linear rails which are "THK HSR20", 400mm long and i will shorten them to 340mm. Next major step will be cut rest of the steel for frame. weld them and then maybe the most important phase of the build, which is machining the lathe bed. The square tubing in the last pic is just for supporting stuff during test-fit, actually they will be part of the table under the lathe.

I received a nice lot of toolholders and carbide inserts for being in an exhibition working with Haas VMC. These are going to be really good tooling for my CNC lathe as i get the shanks milled smaller.

The tooling consists of:

2pcs seco roughing holder PWLNR2020K06 one of these is a bit broken
-8pcs inserts for these

Seco face roughing holder MTFNR2020K16
one unused insert

Seco threading holder CER2020K16
-9pcs inserts for metric 1.75 thread

Seco profiling holder SDJNR2525M11
-one worn insert

Seco cut-off holder CFMR2525M04
-5pcs inserts with 2mm radius.

Ceratizit Ecocut 14mm EC14R-2.25D 07 (almost unused!)
-8pcs inserts

Ceratizit 16mm end mill for high speed machining (new!)
2kpl inserts

Nice haul. One thought on your plates, through expirience, I've found any form of mill finish on plate matirial will create a wavy surface due to tram in the bit. These can be significant enough to make rails bind.

So as a surgestion, if you can gain access to a surface grinder. Use it. It may be hours of time, but the dead flat, mirror finish is well worth it.

On a second note, If you can stress relieve your steel. do it. Warping from machining can be upto a few mm. I went for 1 hour at 650oC for mine.

Sam.