Are any of you interested in a cnc conversion kit for the 7x lathes? I have partially designed one and have the idea in my head mostly. it would actually end up being a 12x or so lathe by the time Im done with it for multiple tool posts
what I need to figure out is what you guys want if I was to do this, leadscrew, basic cheap stuff or ballscrews or even preloaded ballscrews.
I went to price out ballscrews to have it preloaded, steppers, and xylotex drives and all that would come up to be about $350, then there would be the rest of the hardware, that would cost some, I am not so sure about doing one or two, its typically not worth the time to do one offs, then to get enough to do a small production run at work and keep the costs down is also difficult as there are many parts to it.
Basicly what I have designed is a new carrage and cross slide that would have about 6-8" of travel I have to decide on motor sizes and screw sizes to complete the drawing, I have whats important to fit it on the lathe designed.
This is something that I will probably not have time to get to untill summer if I end up even getting to it.
My mill isnt quite big enough to make the larger parts like the carrage and cross slide, so if I was to sell these I would have to do this part at work if we would even find time to do it.
Would there be enough interest to make like 20 of these kits up and sell them?
Basically it would replace the existing carrage and either use the existing leadscrew with a motor mounted to it and that would be the only modification to the lathe becides removing un-needed stuff.
Jon