[tmarks11]

A new revision of the "SPL turret install guide" just came out, and I noticed the turret picture is different, and they have different part numbers in the materials list.

New (PN34947):
Attachment 309798
Old (PN33201):
Attachment 309796

Th part number for the "Turret Installation Kit" which contains one or the other of these turrets, has not changed. The picture in their online store is still the old version.

Wonder what is driving the change, and what the differences are?

I notice that they now longer include a 3/4" endmill and no longer have instructions for boring out the tool holders, so I am guessing they now have tool holders that come pre-built with the correct size holes. The new turret also has Tormach's logo in the middle instead of Ningbo Bin's logo.

[MichaelHenry]

Sharp eye there! I downloaded the new turret manual but failed to notice that change. Hopefully us owners of the old style turret won't be missing anything significant.

I'm not sure that they could pre-bore the ID holders - they'd have to be bored perfectly for the Y offset which seems difficult to me unless they have really exceptional QA on the turret and cross slide.

[tmarks11]

IIRC, one of the original blog posts discussed that the boring bar holders came the wrong size, so I guess they fixed that.

Wouldn't the tool offsets fix the whole being slightly off location? It is not like you can blithely swap in a boring bar without re-touching off to find the tip again.

If you take a tool holder off one position in the turret and bolt it into another, how close does it line up? Do you need to touch off the tool again?

[MichaelHenry]

I thought that CNC turrets, like their manual lathe forebears, were fabricated with rough holes that were undersize for the tooling intended and that the intention is that the new owner will bore the hole out in place to ensure that bored hole is aligned with the spindle axis. At least that is what the manual for my Clausing manual turret says, but thoose don't have any adjust along the X and Y axes. The Tormach CNC lathe can be adjusted along X, via the crosslide, but not along Y, aside from shimming. So far as I can tell, there is no way to shim along the Y axis for the Tormach lathe since the ID holder bolts into the turret pocket radially - that is it pops in along X.

[RoketRdr]

It appears that the new bar holders will use bushings like the Aloris units.

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[compunerdy]

It looks like they addressed one of my complaints and it has coolant ports on the correct side for a slant bed lathe with downward facing tools. Machining out the boring bar blocks the way they wanted us to made for a pretty sloppy hole.

[tmarks11]

I wondered about that. A center-cut 3/4" extended length end mill doesn't really make for a precision hole. If it was important to get it that precise, then they should have specified boring (and provided a little g-code routine, which would be cool) or drilling/reaming it to size.

[MichaelHenry]

I wondered about that. A center-cut 3/4" extended length end mill doesn't really make for a precision hole. If it was important to get it that precise, then they should have specified boring (and provided a little g-code routine, which would be cool) or drilling/reaming it to size.

I wondered the same thing and am still mulling over how to proceed. I'm inclined to go with a reamer, assuming there is one in inventory along with an appropriately sized drill bit. I'm more concerned with hole location on the ID holder for drilling bits than for boring tools, though I'd like the hole to be as accurately located as possible. I'm also pondering the routine use of gang tool holders for drill bits but probably won't know the optimum way to tool up for a few months yet as I get enough experience to see what works best for me.