[gt40]

I wanted to start a new thread to document conversion of my Jet 13x40 lathe. Most of this should translate to similar size lathes like the PM lathes etc. and I hope it will be of help to anyone considering it. I am basically building off of the lessons learned from successfully converting my PM45M mill to CNC.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/vertic...g-factory.html


My Jet mill suffered another crash last year and completely lost threading capabilities on what was a decent machine. Instead, I am converting it to a gang or turret style cnc lathe with vfd and controlled by Mach 3.

I started by taking off the lead screws, x axis compound etc off. All of this goes away with a cnc conversion and I will use a pendant to control it. There is no reason to have cranks and they just get in the way.
Initial mockup. Note the compound goes away:
Attachment 237564

The servo will go underneath with timing gears to run it.

I was able to pick up a 2.5"x 10" x 13" piece of 7075 tooling plate from the scrap pile at industrial metal supply. It will replace the compound and shelter the ballscrew from shards etc and be a rigid platform for a turret or gang setup.

Next I had to machine the saddle to make where I would mount the ballscrew perfectly parallel to the surface on the dovetail. This setup took several hours to get it aligned but I was able to use it to flatten the saddle and also drill the holes to mount the ballscrew:

Attachment 237566

I made ballnut mount via cnc on the mill:

Attachment 237568

I was a little concerned whether having the ballscrew mounted offset would cause binding but after everything was mounted, a small cordless drill easily moves the x axis really well. I can't even begin to describe how much more rigid everything is with no compound and a giant piece of 7075 on the x axis.

Pic of the ballscrew mounted:
Attachment 237570

Next up, I have timing pulleys coming and a 3 hp extreme duty motor already to go:





My jet used to look pretty much the same as the PM lathes. Now it is definitely on a "diet":

Attachment 237576

left overs:
Attachment 237578

I took some time today to prep the lathe now that it is all stripped to go ahead and paint it.

2 coats of primer:

Attachment 237580

I ended up having some fun with the paint:

Attachment 237582

Attachment 237584

Attachment 237586

For reference, this is what the lathe looked like when I started with it:



thanks for looking,

Gt40