Whats better a Microkinetics CNC 1340 or retro fit the hardinge DV59 for Cannons

Hi Again you all
This is my delima what i need the lathe for is to turn brass & titanium for scale cannons i have a DV59 hardinge lathe with a split bed. One thought is to convert it to cnc with mach 3 thk rail & ball screws for a x travel of 30 or so inches and 12 on the X. I fiqured it may run between 2-3 k.

Or i have an opportunity to get a Microkinetics CNC 1340 lathe thats made in 2007 and has less than 2 hr on it reason why the low hours are because he is having the parts made elsewhere. he has around 13k in it and wants 6-8k is this a good deal.

I had look in this forum for info on this lathe and its about 50/50 or so one guy here that makes paintball parts has one and is happy with it and another has problems with the tool path and usb port.

Below are some images of the work that will be done on it. Again Thanks for any input information you may beable to advise thanks Austin

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the microkinetics deal depends on the accessories. i saw his ebay ad and really you can get a brand new microkinetics lathe with threading for $500 more than he's asking. if the micro sold for 3000-4000, then that might be a better deal. ultimately if your selling these you may want to drop a few quotes out there. you'd be surprised what you can get parts made from these days. you can buy alot of cannons for $8500

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thk rail & ball screws for a x travel of 30 or so inches and 12 on the X. I fiqured it may run between 2-3 k.

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Are you sure you want to put linear rails on a lathe ? They have to be super rigid to get a good cut. The Dovetail ways and V type saddle is the best. You can an auto-oiler on the ways.


BTW, Nice cannons.

On my hardinge it has the split bed its an older type i which i had the dovetail one i have a piece of cast iron that's like 4 foot log by 18" by 2" thick and weighs a ton too i was going to face it on one side and mill the bed out so it would seat nicely on the lathe bed and have several bolts holding it down in the t slot. That would be after it was trued up for the rails but all this seems like way to much work. that's if i had the time. Thanks Austin

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Originally Posted by Larken

Are you sure you want to put linear rails on a lathe ? They have to be super rigid to get a good cut. The Dovetail ways and V type saddle is the best. You can an auto-oiler on the ways.


BTW, Nice cannons.

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Hi Their
I had tried to get Quotes last year when i had to make 40 of those med size brass mortars and the best one was 30 bucks each in quanities of 100 but the problem is i have like 10 diffrent cannons i had made for customers and i had sold them at a good price and people like them there are one that other makers that want twice as much for but not as good. And i figure this CNC is low enough not the 8k but maybe 5-6k and since he's only 100 miles from me and i had spoken to him and i'm going to look at it in the morning and i think he said it does have the threading attachment and other tooling and accessories to I'll know more tomorrow. And this will be good for the Bersa 380 Titanium firing pins i had made one for mine and it works great. And i had some orders for 1/2 scale and 1/3 scale howitzer cannon and this bed is fairly long so. It would be great if i could get this made for less but no one would thanks Again Austin

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Originally Posted by Runner4404spd

the microkinetics deal depends on the accessories. i saw his ebay ad and really you can get a brand new microkinetics lathe with threading for $500 more than he's asking. if the micro sold for 3000-4000, then that might be a better deal. ultimately if your selling these you may want to drop a few quotes out there. you'd be surprised what you can get parts made from these days. you can buy alot of cannons for $8500

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Well I now wish i hade retrofitted the Hardinge lathe. against fellow recomendations i went ahead and purched a used microkinetics CNC 1340 lathe and it has been nothing but problems. I sure i will have to re retro fit it with another controler and encoder unles i pay the 10% of 13k for the warenty transfer. I had read only good about this machine so i thought it was good but after getting it its been nothing but problems 1 was the polarity which was resolved on the x axis but also a threading issue in which after i spent $150 for which was cheap because i had posted a banner on my website but it still wasn't worth it because there only support is that i send the encoder back at a small fee. But with the issues so far i will not pay the $1,300.00 for the transfer of the waranty because from what i see so far there will only be more & more issues. I'd be better off re retrofitting this with a new controler so if you all have any ideas please let me know I'd like to run Mach 3 there software just doesn't work it times out if you know where to buy a kit let me know i should beable to use the drive i have i'll give you all the other stuff like the driverack subsystem its useless to me

Thanks for any info Austin

Is that a stepper drive or servo. What type of drives are in it.

Also how many lines is the spindle encoder ?
Is the spindle variable speed ?

Larry K

the microkinetics lathes are stepper drive. also the spindle speeds are set with the gear box.

Hi Thanks for the info.
I had meant to get back to Larken earlier but I had been busy trying to get the lathe working & set up but it’s really useless.
I had tried their threading wizard in the Turn master Pro Program But in the demo version your unable to use it. I had acquired about the spindle being control in the program and what I was lead it was but it’s not like it shows in Turn Master program I had understood that the spindle speed wasn’t unless you purchases the VFD for $1400. I could always install a solenoid actuator and have it pluged into the back of the control box so when the M03 command is entered it will activate the hand switch and turn it off also when you do the tool change. And the same with the reverse if I ever needed it with the coolant outlet but that’s it there are only 2 plug on mine but it shows four on the current models of the 400 driverack. As far as the encoder I don’t know how many lines it has 4 wires indx & channel A on the controller. And that is useless because it doesn’t work. I had called them Tech Support and had entered the M25 #THREADINGSUB as he said and still the program stops waiting for the encoder and times out below is the g-code that their Wizard generates for a 3/8 24 thread That’s without the G25 #THREADSUB Command he told me to enter. However he said for a fee I could send the encoder & Controller back to get it fixed. But if I had paid for the transfer of the warranty of $1,300 which is 10% of the original purchases price 2 and a half years ago I’m sure I could get it fixed but I already have close to 7k into this So my only option is to spend more money on a new controller for the steppers and get rid of their control box and use Mach 3 I guess
After going on 2+ weeks I had been able to get 1 of their cnc programs to work after the x axis polarity problem was resolved But I have been unable to import any of the DXF files from my cad program into their Turn Master software thru the import tool.
I had done research on the company and all the reviews here were good exepct for some of the x axis operating faulty and the loose bolt problems which were clearly the case on this lathe close to all of them on the slide were loose along with wires on the federate override dial.
I had thought that since the machine was only a few years old and was barely used it would at least perform a little. I would have been better off retrofitting the Hardinge lathe This is all so discouraging. If any of you have a Basic g code program for threading on this machine please post it and I’ll try it
M25 #THREADINGSUB
#THREADINGSUB
G91 /Use Relative Offsets

/ External 24.0038 TPI Threading Command
G33 X-0.0248 Z2 I0.003 K0.04166

M17 /Return

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Originally Posted by Runner4404spd

the microkinetics lathes are stepper drive. also the spindle speeds are set with the gear box.

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I have a 1236 lathe and I feel your pain. Did you ever get it up and running? It took me about 8 monthe to finally work out the major problems and I have been using it without to many problems lately. If I can help you I would be glad to go through the steps I have taken.

Do you still have the Hardinge?

If so, you can make a dandy CNC by copying what Accuslide used to make. Essentially, it is a 2 axis gang tooling set up that clamps to the v-ways. There's a little bit of data about it on my web site:

http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCLatheCNCGangSlide.html

They're very slick, and I know several shops still running them that swear by them. You may be able to get one used on eBay.

Failing that, they sure don't look that hard to build.

Cheers,

BW

I wish i never bought the Microkintics CNC lathe to this day it has been nothing but problems. The only way i have been able to make this work is to generate my own code. Their software is nothing but ****. So any of you that plan onbuying from this company even the smallest of part BEWARE your buying nothing but headaches. You will regret it theirs not enough pain meds to help.

I have seen CNCMasters unit which is the same but 100% beter because if issues do arise it still has the manual controls. I fully understand that by not spending over $100,000 for an CNC your limited But come on.

So heed my warning Beware Nothing but HEADACHES

Thanks AMG

I got some Microkinetics drivers, Optistep, motors, and software several years ago to convert a Sherline mill and had nothing but problems. I never could get it to work correctly. I would never buy anything from them again.

Since Microkinetics has bad customer service and i see a trend of buggy controllers anyone want to start a Open Source project for the MN400 Controller? Was planning this weekend to jtag in to it and have a look around (Found my self doing other things) the Xilinx, PIC18F,Eproms and DSP chips are fairly common and have great following for homebrew types!


http://stevenrhine.com/Machines/Lath...0Debugging.jpg