[ladybreaker]

Hello to all Artsoft Guru,


Couple years ago I purchased a CNC6040 in which I'm very please with it and Have managed to do some project with it and with some assistance from this forum.


Now I need to reduce the OD of a small aluminum tube and I do not what to pay some one to do it if possible, so what I'm asking is it possible to set the A axis " in which I never used" to as a spindle,able to set a speed rotation therefore I can use the chuck of the A axis to hold the tube and use the main spindle to reduce and cut.
I hope I explained my need correctly and I apologies if I'm not good in technical terminology.


Hope someone can help


Thank you

[crocnc]

Can you hold Alum tube in your master spindle and run it against fixed turning tool.
Should be very simple to program.
Position in X and Y then cut with Z going up and down.


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[ger21]

so what I'm asking is it possible to set the A axis " in which I never used" to as a spindle,able to set a speed rotation therefore I can use the chuck of the A axis to hold the tube and use the main spindle to reduce and cut.

Mach3 only supports one spindle. If you can control your main spindle manually, then you could configure your A axis as the spindle.

[skrubol]

Are you looking to use it with lathe tooling or just to turn the piece as you cut it with an end mill?
If the first, as mentioned previously, not easily doable, it's probably stepper driven, so will be way too slow, and to Mach, it's an axis, not a spindle, so there are issues there as well.
If the first, look into wrapped toolpaths. It's something that you could code by hand pretty easily once you understand how the 4th axis works. Note that the surface finish won't be as good as a lathe turned part.