CNC Lathe

[BrentH]

Hey guys, I know I know - SEARCH, anyways, I'm looking for a small CNC Lathe that can be used to cut basically whatever you want. My buddy and I dont know much about them as we are IT guys but we want to make some parts for our cars as well as my R/C's. Any ideas on what is a good machine? Preferably something that could run on 220, 3 phase might get a little expensive. Thanks, I apologize if I missed an already existing thread on this topic. Thanks!

[scorpion]

If you plan on making wheels, you'll need a mill and a lathe unless you're looking at spending the big bucks on a lathe that has live tooling. For noobs, live tooling is what would allow you to do machine work that is not round or off center on a part in a lathe. Live tooling would be an independent endmill, drillbit, tap, etc spinning in a holder that's attached to the tool turret. Using the x and y axis of the turret, it can machine any shape while the chuck holds the part still or moves as an idexing head as another axis (on a lathe is it the 4th or 3rd axis?). These machines are the big money and, as far as I am aware, there aren't many hobby versions of a cnc lathe with live tooling. I have personally owned a production sized CNC Lathe and, unless you're looking to make 10000 wheels, it's not worth the investment.

Here's a video of a CNC Lathe with live tooling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0VRm6WMeEM

There's many more videos on youtube for CNC machining.

Non-live tooling lathes are good for machining things round but don't do well with patterns. If you intend on making wheels then you'll need to be able to machine a hex into the back of them so that they can mount to the hex nuts on the axles of your crawler. Looking at just any wheel:



You'll notice that most of the holes in these wheels (except the center nut) and lock rings are off-center. To accomplish this you will likely want a milling machine instead of a lathe. I make my own wheels and rings on a cnc knee mill. I make my wheel blanks on a manual lathe which I use only for simple operations. I turn the wheel blanks to the right OD and face both sides. For the beadlock rings I bore a piece of stock to the right ID and then part off the rings one at a time on the lathe as well as do the final chamfering. Both the rings and the wheel banks go over to the mill for all of the holes and complex patterns.

Here's a set I made a month or so ago


If you've never machined parts before, you'll also want to do some research on setups and fixtures. Making a part (and it is even more important if you intend on making multiples of the same part) requires multiple setups and a variety of tooling. The more thought out the setup, the easier the job will be. The better the tooling, the less work that will need to be done. For example, drilling a hole isn't just drilling a hole. You may first spot the hole to ensure that the drill bit starts in the right spot.

Also consider tapping. If you want a machine to tap a hole for you then you'll be looking at a machine that has rigid tapping. I've not heard of a hobby machine that has that as an option as they likely don't have enough horsepower to do so. With delrin wheels you can do all of the tapping quickly using a hand drill while holding the part with great success. On an aluminum wheel you'll have to be more careful.

To give you an idea of what a real milling machine will cost you, I'm running a Kent Knee Mill that was converted to CNC using a Centroid Kit (http://www.centroidcnc.com). I spent about $5k on the knee mill, $25k on the CNC conversion, and have about $15k in tooling. You'll likely be able to find something used in the $10k to $15K range ready to run given the economy. There are hobby versions of a CNC mill. One company that is fairly popular is Serline (http://www.sherline.com/) who also offers a hobby sized cnc lathe.

For information about what's good and what's not you may want to do some research @ http://www.cnczone.com. There are forums for just about every type of cnc machine from hobby size to full size with many personal experiences good and bad.

[BrentH]

Cool, Thanks for the resources and info. We are mainly looking to make some Porsche parts, interior parts etc etc, door sill plates and stuff, but didnt know where to get reliable info at. I know that people on here make their own parts and stuff so i figured I'd ask.

[dkf]

What are you looking to spend? If you get a rotary phase converter you can run 3 phase motors without having a 3 phase service.

[scorpion]

Originally Posted by dkf

What are you looking to spend? If you get a rotary phase converter you can run 3 phase motors without having a 3 phase service.

That's what I have running the equipment at my house. 7.5 hp converter runs the mill and the lathe. FWIW, most machines the hobby size might as well run the single phase motors as you won't run them enough to worry about the cost savings and having a phase converter is kind of a pain and they're not cheap. Mine was over $1200 new.

[scorpion]

Originally Posted by BrentH

Cool, Thanks for the resources and info. We are mainly looking to make some Porsche parts, interior parts etc etc, door sill plates and stuff, but didnt know where to get reliable info at. I know that people on here make their own parts and stuff so i figured I'd ask.

It's totally worth buying the equipment if you plan on building a lot of parts and if you can afford them. If you're going to make a small number of parts it's typically less expensive to farm them out to someone who already has the equipment as the big cost of buying the equipment up front doesn't get recovered until you've made a few hundred parts even on a hobby machine.

Going back, I would still purchase what I have if I had to do it all over again but I used mine for production and paid for them many times over. Had I not I probably wouldn't have made the initial purchase.

[SlickRockSpider]

Originally Posted by BrentH

Hey guys, I know I know - SEARCH, anyways, I'm looking for a small CNC Lathe that can be used to cut basically whatever you want. My buddy and I dont know much about them as we are IT guys but we want to make some parts for our cars as well as my R/C's. Any ideas on what is a good machine? Preferably something that could run on 220, 3 phase might get a little expensive. Thanks, I apologize if I missed an already existing thread on this topic. Thanks!

Check out www.cnczone.com There is more info than you will ever need.


Evan

[Ktbone]

This is what I have: http://www.grizzly.com/products/Comb...tachment/G0516
It works just fine for hobby stuff, if you want to get into production work then you will need to get much more exspensive equipment.

[Nates Creations]

Look up Centroid CNC, They have alot of nice equipment