[Spinnetti]

Hi all... I have a Grizzly G9249 12" x 37" Belt Drive Gap Bed Lathe, and want to CNC it. Anybody put servos on one of these bigger (non-mini lathe) types? I'm not sure what kind of motors to get, or how to do it izzactly. I already engineered my own solution and converted my G1006 Mill drill to CNC with ball screws, servo drive and camtronics controller, but not really sure how to do the lathe. I want to use the same controller for both, so its gotta be servos. How to do it and still be able to use it manually?

Thanks!

[jhowelb]

My guess is use the same motors, ball screws and methods you did on the mill.
Don't know why you'd ever want to manually control, maybe use a pendant?

[Spinnetti]

My guess is use the same motors, ball screws and methods you did on the mill.
Don't know why you'd ever want to manually control, maybe use a pendant?

Um, I actually LIKE making stuff without CNC... I like turning the dials. Also when I'm doing a quick op, I don't want to screw around with cnc, I just want to make it - its like 100x faster manually for simple stuff.

I can use the same ball screws, but can't quite get my head around some of the other stuff. Also, I wonder if I won't need bigger motors. The lathe is fairly beefy. How do I determine motor size or correct ball screw diameter properly? I'm not gonna just guess.

[Runner4404spd]

for that size of lathe i would get at least a 3/4 diameter screw for the z axis and a 5/8 diameter screw for the x axis. the motors should be about 300 ozin motors and capable of running up to 4000 rpm or so and then you want a belt reduction of 4:1 giving you about 1000 screw RPM.

this should be plenty to drive your lathe. good luck and i look forward to seeing the progress.

[Spinnetti]

for that size of lathe i would get at least a 3/4 diameter screw for the z axis and a 5/8 diameter screw for the x axis. the motors should be about 300 ozin motors and capable of running up to 4000 rpm or so and then you want a belt reduction of 4:1 giving you about 1000 screw RPM.

this should be plenty to drive your lathe. good luck and i look forward to seeing the progress.

Thanks for the tips.... now the hard part... how to neatly set up the drives without stuff sticking out all over.

[rustamd]

think it'll be hard to find steppers that turn 4000rpm

[Spinnetti]

think it'll be hard to find steppers that turn 4000rpm

Servo, not stepper....

Dan Mauch (Camtronics) sent me a couple pics of a similar conversion, so I got what I need - thanks guys.
Over the next couple months, I'll "git er' done" in-between other projects.