[jeremiahgus]

Hello,

I have been using this forum for years for plenty of good advice and opinions but this is the first post or direct question I have posted. I have saved up enough money to make a few machine purchases. I own a house and I have a full 2 car garage that I have as my shop so I am not totally limited in space. I was looking to purchase a CNC mill and a manual lathe. I was going to go with a Taig CNC mill and go with a Grizzly 10 x 22 lathe with variable speed but in thinking about it I may go a different route. My initial intention was to later convert the lathe to CNC but was wondering a few things now. Instead of going with two computers and two controllers would it be a better idea to go with two manual machines, maybe a Grizzly brand a bit bigger than the Taig and convert them both to CNC. Then I would just unplug one machines stepper or servos and plug in the other one when it is to be used. Just use the same exact motors on both machines? Is this is a reasonable option?
I have a budget of 4-5k, and the full cnc taig is going for around 2500 and the grizzly going for around 1700. Any opinions on what I should do? pros or cons of either?
Thanks,
Jeremiah

[awerby]

That sounds like something that would get old really fast. While it's not that hard to mount the stepper motors on a Taig mill -if you're doing it once - it would be a major pain in the tookus to have to do it each time you wanted to use it. There would be many times you just wanted to get a job done, but then you'd realize that the motors were on the lathe (or the mill) and you'd need an extra hour or so to switch over. It sounds like you've got enough money to get the manual lathe and CNC Taig; I'd say just do it, and think about CNCing the lathe when you get some more. It might want different motors anyway, since the Grizzly will likely need more torque.

On the other hand, if you just had to switch the leads on your controller box, that wouldn't be as hard, as long as you were able to use the same motors for both machines. Those 23-frame stepper motors aren't really that expensive; you can usually find them for between $50 and $100 each, and the lathe just needs 2 of them.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[jeremiahgus]

Yeah I was talking about having the motors on both machines and just changing the leads. So the only thing I would be sharing between the two machines would be the controller and the computer.

[awerby]

Okay, that makes more sense. When you said you were using the same motors, it sounded like you planned to switch them between machines. If you get motors for your lathe that match the motors on the Taig, there shouldn't be a problem in using the same controller for both. I'd get the second set of cables from Taig, since that would be easier than making them up yourself, and would allow you to simply unplug the one machine and plug in the other. Just remember to turn off the controller and let it rest a while to discharge the capacitors before unplugging anything, since a spark will kill your drives. Set up a different profile in Mach3 for the lathe, since the axis designations and motor tuning will be different.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[jeremiahgus]

ok, yeah Ive been thinking about it more and think that may be the way for me to for now. Just use the lathe manual for a while and maybe 6 months or so down the road work on converting it to CNC. It looks to me like the lathe could use bigger motors than the Taig does, would the controller that comes with a CNC Taig be able to power the bigger motors or would the better route be to get a CNC ready Taig and buy a different controller than the full CNC Taig comes with?
The Grizzly I have been looking to get would be the G0752.

[Tkamsker]

Hi i did Start your Way so i have an (now Cnc) lathe which has an Mill Head which is also Cnc this Works well. So had to Plug the vfd to achieve spindle Control. Depending on your Needs it Works ( the Videos are on Youtube ) but ,... You have to change always from milling plate to turning Tools ,.. So my Solution fo that will be an toolchanger for the lathe which has the tslot plate on Top ,.. But if you Need to Mill a Lot better get you an Mill. ( and i adjusted my lathe that i still can work Manual and Cnc ) Thomas


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