Perhaps someone here can give me advise.
I am an engineer for a company in the automotive business. I have been managing at the floor level of a small machine shop with 2 machinists/fabricators. My boss has an interest in expanding capability of our machines, and in the last year or so we have added a VMC. Right now we have only one lathe, the Clausing Colchester. It's a 15" variable speed engine lathe.
My boss wants to add CNC lathe capability to the shop. We don't have ANY more room to add a machine and so a purpose built CNC lathe is out. We can't expand and we can't get rid of anything. Partly political, partly logistics. What i've got is what i've got.
I've got a very good handle on the controls and servo side of the business, but don't have any experience in what it takes to convert a lathe. I've convinced my boss that conversion is about the only way to get what he wants and he agreed. I've found some nice packages in our price range. So the controls are handled i think. We'd use Mach3 and the package.
What I DON'T understand well and need your input on is HOW this lathe can be converted and MAINTAIN the manual lathe capability. We really need to be able to keep capability to operate the lathe manually, as we have occasional techs who come in the shop to quickly lathe a part for their work.
Is such a task even possible?
The apron of the lathe looks to be fairly complicated internally. I don't think it would be required to keep threading capability manually, but certainly the power feed would need to be maintained. The feed speeds and spindle speeds are controlled at the gearbox, and there's a VFD with rheostat for speed control in that range.
Do i need to re-engineer the apron? Or come up with a way to engage the feeds somehow? I suspect this is a very very difficult task i've signed up for.
School me please.