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At last I have a functional CNC lathe with working home/limit switches:banana::banana:

I was just about to jump off the nearest freeway overpass when a call to Mariss at Gecko cleared up my...

Hey JT,
So...spent a bit more time this afternoon on my build. I set my axis to 60 ipm. That seems plenty fast for me. Don't want to slam into the chuck by accident. My touchscreen works great....

Sorry ... deleted double post

Hi JT,
Good to know that looking on the Artsoft forum that I'm not the only one struggling to get Machturn to work:tired:

Anyhow, finally wired up everything. Got the X and z axis's (?)...

Hi JT,
Thanks for the welcome back. Really interested to see your conversion, wow... an 11 X 26 tabletop:cheers:

Anyhow, no internals in my box yet. I have everything, but I've been racking...

Took a little sojurn from my CNC lathe adventure.. a couple of trips... a lot of work... Then I took a mild detour and started flying Radio Control again... this time trying helicopters. Needless to...

Today I completed the installation of the X and Z home sensors. Now all that is left to do is complete the controller box and wire up everything. Unfortunately, I'm out of town the rest of the month...

Today, I milled the housings for the Z and X axis home switches.

123359

I will be using Hall Effect sensors triggered by magnets that are affixed to the lathe base and the cross slide. Had a...

Clivefx,
I started doodling on my laptop on vacation in the middle of November... Milled and assembled the last piece to make the conversion functional before the end of the year..

By my...

Gosh Blades...I don't know what to say:o But thank you for making my day.

Bill,
I originally intended to bring the cross slide block a few more inches to cover the vacated circular cutout...

Hi Bill,

Glad to see that you got your problem resolved. It never occured to me to export the Shark file to Dolphin CAM...I merely redrew it in Dolphin CAD, and then opened the machining...

Bill,

Congrats on the new job, and the new mill! Thanks for encouraging words. As far as kits go, now that you have a mill, you are in a great position to make kits to CNC this lathe. And...

Blades,
Try page 3748. They are there under telescoping tapered metal covers. They are made by Centry Covers, but McMaster Carr doesn't tell you that.

Andre,
Stumbled on a solution. When I go to post process, both the target and the post processor name drop down boxes are blank. I was selecting a target from the listed options. Then I would...

Bill,

This is what I had in mind. Spent the morning playing with Shark FX. This is the first design that I have done. Still very rudimentary. I feel like a 16 year old with a driver's permit given...

Guys,

Thank you so much for your kind words:o

Remember...a little over a year ago, I was pretty much a total metalworking newbie. Almost everything I know today has been gathered from this...

Hi Bill,
Thanks for posting the pics. I had come to a similar idea in my thoughts last night. Anyhow, when I got up and was able to gather my bearings when looking at your super steroid enhanced...

Andre,
I have installed Windows7 running through parallels on my iMac. I have gone through all the steps you have outlined above. The patch has been extracted into the ProgramData on the C...

:cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers:

Today was the day!!! I fabricated a bottom chip guard for the screw enclosure. Put a little bend in the rearmost portion....

Bill,

Checked out the datasheets. Seems like these sensors are somewhat similar to the optical limit sensors that came with my mill's Promica kit. Most of the info in the data is jibberish to...

Edit my thoughts on the home switch. What I should have said is that I will need to have two sets of soft limits for the Z axis. One for the 4 jaw, and one for the 3 jaw that extends out much...

Today, I remilled the apron extensions/ballnut holder for the Z axis. Here is the left side to which the ballnut attaches.

122281 122282

Then with the ballnut bolted on :

122283

And...

Art,
Thanks for the link!!! I have decided to try to use hall effect sensors for home sensors in my lathe conversion. I rarely turn or mill anything ferrous, so a weak magnet should not be a...

Al,
I really gave your advice some thought over the weekend and I think I have come up with a workable solution. At first, I wasn't willing to change out the switch layout for my lathe...just...

Good idea for an idler JT. Unfortunately, by the time I read it I had already placed my order with SDP. Needed some spare belts and they're only about 6 bucks apiece. Milled the prototypes for apron...

Completed the final mounting of the Z axis ballscrew. Drilled and tapped holes to secure the fixed and floating blocks. It was necessary to reposition a couple of holes on the fixed mount as the hole...

Al,
Sorry, my brain is semi-fried...Work has been extremely brutal with the end of the year rush. I reread your post from yesterday and it's starting to meke sense to me. I will probably put...

Oops,
On the way to work I realized that my idea wouldn't work...at least the way I intended. If I had a switched external DC source that triggered the relays, then I wouldn't have control of...

Al,
I think that I might have found a solution that could work. What do you think? I have found relay boards that have multiple relays triggered off a DC source. How about getting a four relay...

Thanks for the reply Al. At this point, my lathe is strictly manually operated. The VFD uses the 3 wire approach with both start and stop buttons. In addition, I have a 10k pot wired for speed...