[daniellyall]

could you do whats needed with a 4th axis set up with a servo there a lot of example of people using a 1100 as a lathe out there look for keen

[fastlanecafe]

Here's the text of a post I made back in June of 2008 when they first introduced the duallity lathe

"Looks like this is a company with its sights set on the home shop market. This may be a mis step however, as the whole concept requires 2 men to lift the lathe on and off, or some sort of forklift and room to maneuver it. Using an entire lathe adds a lot of un necessary stuff to the idea. An old machinist friend of mine did a similar thing using just a headstock and tailstock off a lathe. Both were machined and keyed to be parallel in the horizontal and vertical plains and 1 guy could lift the pieces onto the mill table. For short work, the tailstock part was not even necessary. No need for the bedways, carriage, cross slide, compound, gearbox etc. under CNC the power feed and threading is all electronic."

[RCWorks.com]

Have you tried here?

Bad link...

[simpson36]

Handlewanker:

There are machines with the arrangement you describe, but the horizontal spindle in the column turns tool and the workpiece is moved past it in the X axis (typically). The drawback of this arrangement is that (again typically) you cannot use the horizontal and vertical spindle at the same time, and there is no way to move the vertical spindle relative to the workpiece. Drilling, tapping and milling on the OD of a workpiece that is held in the 4th axis is a common application which would not be possible with the arrangement you describe.

daniellyall:

A typical 4th axis is driven by a worm gear or harmonic drive and therefore adding a servo motor would not allow the speeds needed for turning. In order to reach turning speeds (with 2,000 RPM being something of a 'holy grail' in that regard), you are left with belt or gear drive. The gear drive would be more powerful and would not impart an elastic connection, but the obvious disadvantages of keeping big gears alive and lubricated in that environment preclude their use.

'Timing belt' drive is the only viable solution and while the elastic connection will cause significant problems in tuning servo motors, the industrial level servos self tune so that issue goes away. In the case of the new Sigma5 Yaskawas, the auto tuning specifically has separate settings for belt drives.

The problem with even a very stout belt drive is that the elasticity of the belt, even though it is very slight, is enough to cause movement and vibration in very heavy drilling, slotting, cutting teeth, and similar operations. The solution to thin is to have a very significant spindle lock.

FastLane:

The InTurn is typically mounted on an 'outrigger plate' which is bolted to the last few inches of the mill table over the normally unuseable water through than normally inhabits that area. A surface ground steel plate of 1" to 1.5" thickness provides adequate rigidity and allows the 4th axis, which is roughly an 8" cube, to be left on the mill table full time as only 3 or 4" of the end of the table are consumed by the mounting system.

The new version of the tailstock is specifically designed to span a mill vice and is mounted on ground cast iron blocks which can remain bolted to the mill table on either side of the vice and not interfere at all with operation.

In short, the only thing you would need to put up and take down is the tail stock as needed and you don't need to take down your vice to use the tail stock.

[Steve Seebold]

Wow. Companies often remove products from their lines - this has little to do with hobby level or pro level companies. You bought your machine a year ago and you expect Tormach to keep a product line (that was clearly a failure) around until you are ready to buy? You should have bought it then. Why don't you try and buy a Series 2 machine...oh wait, they discontinued those too. Maybe see if Ford still has a Pinto they will sell you...or maybe just the parts so you can build your own. Seriously, think about what you are complaining about....

Oh, I have a .gov email address too and we have bought used equipment with no problem. Maybe your procurement department is just lazy.

Tormach is different than any other company that has a product that doesn't sell. They sell off their inventory and discontinue the item.

[handlewanker]

Hi Simpson........I realise that you don't have the full capacity to do milling and drilling with the horizontal in column spindle arrangement, but as in a regular stand alone CNC slant bed lathe you also have to add live tooling if you want to do any milling, the main part being the facility to turn under CNC conditions with milling as a bonus......depending on the machine etc.

I think if the option of a horizontal spindle with it's massive capacity for turning was offered there would be a big advantage despite the fact that you can't have all the functions as in a combi mill/lathe 4th axis set-up.........one advantage would be the removing of the flexible drive characteristics that most 4th axis set-up have.

If this was a feature with this design in mind, the Y axis travel would need to be extended.......no big deal if you don't need to turn anything over about 200mm or the full travel of the existing Y axis.

I think if a column mill was available with a column containing a horizontal spindle to give you a real CNC turning function in a small envelope it would be the answer to the need for CNC turning capability.........if milling was only required, the hole for the horizontal spindle could be blanked off with a plate to reduce cost so only one column would be needed to be stocked, but the lathe capability could be added later if the need arose.
Ian.

[daniellyall]

Ian look up simpson 36 on youtube, simpson 36 I look forward to your reply

[simpson36]

Hi Simpson........I realise that you don't have the full capacity to do milling and drilling with the horizontal in column spindle arrangement, but as in a regular stand alone CNC slant bed lathe you also have to add live tooling if you want to do any milling, the main part being the facility to turn under CNC conditions with milling as a bonus......depending on the machine etc.
Ian.

Tooling is something of a challenge when adding Mill/Turn capability to a mill because hanging a gang tooling bar on the side of the head works great for square column mills where the head moved up and down and is usually relatively flat on the sided. Bridgeport type mills with a short travel quill have no convenient way to add a gang of tools that can move in the Z axis relative to the 4th axis. Most machines seems to have the quill converted to Z axis moves and the big knee is unpowered.

Your idea for a horizontal spindle got me noodling over ways that arrangement might be used and it has occurred to me that a horizontal spindle could be used to hold and rotate a tool turret to bring a number of cutting tools to the 4th axis. Actually one of my customers recently suggested using the new InTurn ULTRA as a tool turret on his big lathe. That should prove to be an interesting project. We have a 'loose' schedule to discuss it over lunch soon when he is in Texas on other business.

There is just no telling where the next great idea will come from!

[simpson36]

Tormach is no different than any other company that has a product that doesn't sell. I hey sell off their inventory and discontinue the product.

True enough!

Neither MACH3 nor MACH4 have the ability to spin an axis continuously, so to overcome this limitation, I first used the 'swapaxis' feature to swap the 'A' axis and the 'S'pindle axis in order to spin the 4th axis. Later I developed an independent controller for the 4th axis motor which generates the step/dir signals to spin the axis. This device is integrated into MACH via a custom screen set.

Quite a few PC1100 owners have purchased the InTurn so I took the initiative to contact Tormach with the intent to QC my screens against theirs in order to eliminate any conflicts. All I needed from them was to know what Inputs and outputs they used so that I could avoid them and so that I could modularize the InTurn control set to fit on an unused part of their screen (instead of replacing their screen entirely.)

They refused to cooperate in any way and their justification for that was that I had a 'competing' product (they even sent a link to the 'Duality' lathe in their response).The notion that they considered the products to be 'competitive' left me with the impression that they really had no clue how limiting their product was. It looks like ultimately, their customers enlightened them.

[handlewanker]

Hi Simpson, the customer is always right.....second rule of selling.

I watched the videos on UTUBE of your 4th axis at work.....very impressive build and performance.

On the topic of the horizontal spindle for a CNC turn capability, while doing some doodling on my graphics pad with MS paint, it became totally apparent that with that set-up unfortunately.........the mode of milling and turning would be poles apart, mainly due to the inability of the horiz spindle to move up and down and the vertical spindle proper to move in and out in the Y axis plane. for milling as in a machine centre.

With that realization, having a horizontal spindle means you would either turn as one operation with a gang tool set-up, whatever, on the table or mill as a second function as the machine was intended with the vertical spindle........both cannot be incorporated to do a multi function application like a machining centre.......live tooling could be used, but it gets complicated to say the least.

So, you either have a lathe for CNC turning, or a mill for CNC milling, in one packet, but not at the same time etc.

I think that anyone who had the opportunity to do CNC turning with the same mill as he milled with would not consider the machining centre lack of use as a drawback.......mainly in a hobby environment, as a commercial one would mean time down for second op set-ups etc.

BTW, in another thread, I posed the idea of a hydraulic motor to do a drive for small gantry type bridge mill I'm building.......the main reason is to get the speed and high torque that is lacking in similar size small electric spindles and/or drives.

The motor I have seen is 65mm diam and 110mm long, revs to 5,000 rpm, oil pressure about 260 bar, and has awesome torque even.down to low revs........it's driven by an off machine hydraulic power pack.....total cost about $700 all up.
Ian.

[daniellyall]

you know you could get path pilot your self and just do it and the screen set for tormach`s M3 you can just down load to get what pins are what

[G59]

The customer is always right.
BS

I'd rather not sell anything to those who think that's the rule.
Do you think manufacturers are idiots?

[handlewanker]

The customer is always right.
BS

I'd rather not sell anything to those who think that's the rule.
Do you think manufacturers are idiots?

Well, you are wrong buddy.....the first rule of selling is......Find out what the customer wants and make sure he gets it...........the second rule is......the customer is ALWAYS right......ignore that and you go out of business pretty damm quick.

I was trained by door to door salesmen back in the 70's, who worked on commission only.....if you haven't had that experience you haven't lived.

As it's off topic, I'll drop the subject.
Ian.

[simpson36]

you know you could get path pilot your self and just do it and the screen set for tormach`s M3 you can just down load to get what pins are what

The solution with Tormach's MACH3 was to simply ditch the Tormach screens and replace them with mine. In order to get a 'secret code' to unlock the Tormach MACH3, the customer has to sign a waver giving away his support entitlement. Tormach owners have full copies of MACH3 and it took me about 5 minutes to get rid of the Tormach screen and reinstall MACH3 (and the latest version, which Tormach does not use), without their secret code.

I do not know this as fact, but I *think* (and have been told) that Tormachs Pilot is a modified Linux CNC which is public domain software. I am not supporting that at this time.

Currently I am working with MACH4 to finish a product that I believe you are aware of, and provide a path to a working upgrade for the many folks who want to move to MACH4, but are understandably afraid to. The new TCP version of the motor controller is already ported to MACH4.

I am finding that there is a lot that can be done to stabilize MACH4. As you know, the differences between M3 and M4 are huge. I am getting 20 to 29ms Modbus loop times with 40 Registers. Interaction is literally real time (by human perception). Not doable with MACH3.

[simpson36]

I think that anyone who had the opportunity to do CNC turning with the same mill as he milled with would not consider the machining centre lack of use as a drawback.......mainly in a hobby environment, as a commercial one would mean time down for second op set-ups etc.

Ian.

You lost me on this one. I don't understand what 'machining center lack of use' refers to.

In any case, a separate late and mill is not equivalent to a machine with Mill/Turn capability. You would still need a 4th axis on the mill to perform indexing functions to produce parts that the lathe is unable to finish.

For those parts that ARE able to be produced with a separate lathe and mill, I would agree that on a hobby level the additional time this method would take might not justify the expense of adding Mill/Turn to the mill.

In light commercial or industrial setting settings, the landscape is very different and speed of production is heavily weighted in decision making. I make a small steel part several hundred at a time and to make the part on a lathe and mill, including a tapped hole in the center, would take quite a long time. With Mill/Turn, the part starts as 3/4" bar stock and goes thru:

facing;
Turning to a finished shoulder
center drilling
peck drilling (horizontally)
tapping
and finally cutting opposing flats on the barrel 180 degrees apart.

All of this is done without operator intervention and takes about 2 minutes per part.

That being said, I think this thread is asking how to get this ability on a milling machine, not whether it is useful to have the feature. Many options exist . . including a DIY part. My videos go thru the whole process of designing and building a Mill/Turn 4th axis, so anyone who is up to the challenge has all of the instructions they would need.

Pretty much anything would be better than the Duality lathe . . . just my opinion.

[jdclark]

Handelwanker,
Sorry but have to agree with G59 on this one. The " customer is always right " theory was a development of large retailers competing for market share. Back in the old west, you might have 1 blacksmith in town, 1 general store etc. and you pretty much did business by their rules and prices. Sears, Penneys, Woolworths etc. changed that landscape and it was again greatly changed when the post WW II Japanese government supported exporters with the" do anything for market share " philosophy. Many large retailers cling to this thinking for fear that some whiner will complain on the internet and cost them sales. However, for small enterprises like you see on this forum, these businesses can reach enough people to sell their products by simply saying " this is what we have, this is what it does and these are our terms". Even a whiner will not scare away a reasonable person.

[tmarks11]

Well, you are wrong buddy.....the first rule of selling is......Find out what the customer wants and make sure he gets it...........the second rule is......the customer is ALWAYS right......

Only true if you are JC Penney (or a door to door salesman). And even JC Penney is backing off from that rule because of all the customers trying to take advantage of them using that rule.

The first rule (if you are a machinist or an engineer) is "the customer doesn't actually know what he needs... you are the expert, find a solution that solves his real problem, not the problem he thinks he has".

Such as the OP. He thinks he needs a Duality Lathe. But there are a lot of people here explaining he doesn't really want that. Simpson has an awesome product with a lot of vocal satisfied customers. It is far more capable... and more convenient... than a duality lathe. I am happy to see him chime in on this post.

On the topic of the horizontal spindle for a CNC turn capability, while doing some doodling on my graphics pad with MS paint

Ian, you have talked for the last 4263 posts about how [someday] you are going to unleash the power of CNC.

Here is an idea: buy a decent (or crummy) version of some CAD software and start learning that. That is a beginning step that you can do now, while you wait until you get a CNC machine. Trying to "noodle" through machine design on MS paint is not the way to go. A decent 3D CAD program makes that some much easier and enjoyable.

Quite a few PC1100 owners have purchased the InTurn so I took the initiative to contact Tormach with the intent to QC my screens against theirs in order to eliminate any conflicts...They refused to cooperate in any way and their justification for that was that I had a 'competing' product.

I would suggest that now they are discontinuing the duality lathe that you contact them again. Unfortunately, I suspect they will still see your product as a competitor against their 4th Axis as well.

I do not know this as fact, but I *think* (and have been told) that Tormachs Pilot is a modified Linux CNC which is public domain software. I am not supporting that at this time.

It is indeed LinuxCNC. Tormach has confirmed this.

[roundman]

If I were in your situation I would be just as upset yet I would ask myself what better option is out there to fill my current needs. OK the lathe is not selling anymore. Perhaps the builder of the Lathe for Tormach stopped making them , changed them, or is selling them to other providers under different names who knows? I would forget all of that take your checklist on what you need in a new lathe from design to service and availability of service and or repair and shop using that list to find a solid deal. Continue to ask for advice from people and take your time with it also. You will be ok and the plus is you did not order the lathe only to have them discontinued later. If these were really a hot item in high demand and profitable you would easily be able to order that machine and because it is gone takes it off that imaginary table.

It sets the mind free to review your needs and revalidate what you need and where you can get it from and also have support for the machine. A blessing.

[handlewanker]

It all comes down to cost in the end.......no matter how good the item, if it's too costly the sales fall off and it becomes less of a profit earner.......making a hundred bucks on a $10,000 piece of high class equipment is a sure way to go broke......ask Rolls Royce.....ask Jaguar.......etc etc.

As Simpson has produced what can be called a very good prototype for the ideal solution that works, how much could it be made for on a commercial basis when it's R&D'd for production and tidied up for showroom display to the customer?

The rub is that time is money and injecting hours of high class machining is not the way to get the profit at the end......and it is profit that rules the day........no doubt as Tormach found out.......too little profit and you may as well be a philanthropist for the many CNC users who want the product but not at the price.

I have to ask myself........is that belt drive arrangement, with it's propensity to have spring, the ideal way for a commercial product that will stand the course long term, or become a troublesome constant maintenance problem.

Going into production with a design is the biggest worry for any producer, because after the die is cast, someone will always think of a better way.

Simpson's design and build is magnificent, almost watchmaking in quality, but not an item for commercial production.

It would be interesting to know how much the build would cost in the current design to supply to the market.

No doubt Tormach would agree it's a good piece of equipment, but not a saleable item.

BTW....Tmarks....I do have Cadkey for formal design, and old version no doubt, and Turbocad V16 (still learning that one)......but when you're doodling ideas you never want to be formal until you finalise the design......hence using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics pad and Photoshop or MS Paint for the graphics program.

I think this is getting into an argument mode, so as I'm not a Tormach user, but the application is universal, I'll bow out and sit on the side lines and watch the show......there being no intention to denigrate the endeavours of the builder by being critical of any aspect of the build.
Ian.

[tmarks11]

No doubt Tormach would agree it's a good piece of equipment, but not a saleable item.

Obviously you aren't very familiar with Tormach and their product line.

Their ATC is a domestic built product, developed and built by a "mom-pop shop"... who is now one of their retail distributors (ZBot LLC). If you are interested, here is what it looked like before they partnered with Tormach: http://www.littlemachineshop.com/ins...uctions-v1.pdf

Their PCNC enclosure? The same.

If they felt Simpson's In-Turn product filled a hole in their product line, the fact that it is hand crafted, quality constructed, US built, and relatively expensive wouldn't deter them. After all, Tormach's ATC is more expensive than what HAAS sells for their TM-1. They would just add another video to their "customer success story" page and start selling it.

Unfortunately, the In-Turn overlaps several of their existing products... and they are not in the business with competing with themselves.

Simpson's design and build is magnificent, almost watchmaking in quality, but not an item for commercial production.

You mean, it is like a piece of machinery? Like a cnc machine tool? There are a lot of machine tool accessories that many of us use every day that falls exactly in the category. Ever seen the inside of a DTI? That is exactly like a mechanical watch. Price a tool setter recently?

He could probably make the build go faster by using a casting instead of assembling it from solid aluminum plate. But that doesn't mean the end result would be better, or cheaper.

BTW....Tmarks....I do have Cadkey for formal design, and old version no doubt, and Turbocad V16 (still learning that one)......but when you're doodling ideas you never want to be formal until you finalise the design......hence using a Wacom Intuos3 graphics pad and Photoshop or MS Paint for the graphics program.

Then maybe you should find a different CAD solution. I use Solid Works, and it is so easy to build 3D models on, and assemblies of 3D models, that I "doodle" with it to try and figure out mechanisms that will work. 90% of what I "build" on SW gets rejected in the end as I find better ways to build and arrange components. I couldn't imagine trying to figure out "machine design" with MS Paint. Or Photoshop. Right tool for the right job.

Formal and finalized? No way. SW starts as the "rough draft" and works through to the finished product. Using a non-parametric drawing system is just wasting your time.

But we are getting a bit far afield from the OP (sorry). I blame Ian...