Re: Emco compact 5 pc lathe - linuxcnc setup without circuit board hack.
Sam If you have a spare to send then ya let me know your price
I have no idea of how I did that damage . mine looks to be stamped to and I'd expect it to bend if anything . It broke at the top portion of around 1/2 dozen holes , so I'm thinking a bit of metal epoxy putty could possibly be formed to replace that chunk .
I had the lathe tipped up at one point to get at the gibs to tighten them and the lathe took a bad spill , so I'm expecting something must have wacked it at that point but who knows . Aside from that this thing is very consistent when I do batches of parts . Like any lathe the sizes will creep until the bearings are fully warmed up and after that I can keep pumping out parts .
I can take a pretty heavy cut considering how little of casting there is to the lathe . The only cuts that really get the vibrations up are a straight in .125 wide groove cut , and that doesn't come as a surprise . Yesterday scared me , I was taking heavy groove cuts and suddenly the vibration went nuts . I stopped it and I could move the chuck side to side . First thing that immediately came to mind was I blew the bearing . Turned out the vibration was heavy enough to rattle the bolts loose on the chuck mounting plate , I was relieved lol . The chuck and that plate were a replacement for the original chuck and I mustn't have had the plate tightened enough from the get go
Rod
If the lathe is in good shape and ready to go then I honestly don't see a problem with the price if it can be justified with enough parts . From what I've been able to track online about these things , it seems they were awful expense out of the factory , but they mostly targeted schools who had big budgets . If a guy weighs out a retrofit vs a pre-built then time and cost is always a factor . I found this one on ebay for 1200us plus a couple hundred to ship . A new chuck and mount plate were around a couple hundred and the turret was just over 500
It was a good deal because I haven't seen another come up any where near the same price , and they are usually $2500+ when they do come up
A poet knows no boundary yet he is bound to the boundaries of ones own mind !! ........