I was back in the market for a Sherline lathe (should have never sold mine last year) to do small parts for my fly fishing reels (The Eclectic Angler). I was just about ready to pull the trigger on a good used one when a homebrewed CNC Sherline lathe came up locally on CraigsList. It appears to be about a 6-8 year old conversion. The owner used it in his bagpipe making business! (I thought my hobby was strange!).

I'll get photos when I get it down to my shop. He mounted the lathe in an old printer cabinet with an acrylic hinged top. Very nice! It has the PC (Win95/DOS era) and power supply in the cabinet below and a monitor/keyboard arm above. I've found a great flat panel display to replace the heavy CRT.

Apparently he did the conversion from a Stepperworld electronics package: SP-3/HT 3 axis controller, 24 v power supply, Superior Electric Stepper Motors (which are almost as big as the lathe!).

He was controlling it with a purchased copy of YeagerAutomation CNC Pro (now in the open source) and a licensed version of Denford's Lathe CAM Designer. Sort of retro but work for the basics.

I'll probably get familiar with this software and setup to make some parts I need to crank out and then investigate moving to a Gecko controller and Mach. I'm looking for alternative lathe CAM software to do simple things - my needs are not complex. Denford's replacement product, QuickTurn 2D looks interesting ($300) and KipwareT ($400). I'm interested to hear what others are using for software on their Sherlines.

Regards,
Michael