[squale]

I have some parts I want to make, some parts are just UHMW or Delrin plastics, other parts are 300 series stainless steel. I was thinking a CNC lathe that could also do some milling because as you can see in the pictures I need to cut some slots and also drill some very small holes on the face of some round parts. I don't have 30K+ to buy an industrial machine but I definately need CNC capabilities because I need the parts to be uniform and one part can't differ from the next when I am running sets of 15+ pieces at a time. So I wanted to see what was available in these smaller lathes that might be able to do this work and not cost me a ton of money to buy one.

These parts are no more than 3.5 inches in diameter, about 5 inches long at the most (usually more in the 2-3 inch range), and have radius's in the inside of the parts, etc.

[307startup]

Well the Wabeco CC-D6000E high speed lathe (www.mdaprecision.com) will most certainly do the lathing that you require for those parts...as for the perimeter holes, unless you can adapt live tooling to a small lathe, you are not going to be able to do those on your lathe. If you were enterprising enough you could attach an indexing plate behind your chuck to act as a C axis, and rig up an air drill or die grinder to provide the "live" tooling...

[squale]

we are still talking 13K for that lathe, is there anything available cnc lathe in the 5K range?

[vacpress]

squale - your parts look pretty heft for a 'small machine' - it would be slow. a motion programming messup could really thrash something.. my enco lathe, for isntance, would be able to make those parts, but it would be a terrible ordeal. each one would be a nightmare.. the only hope would be very sharp tooling i suppose, and low feeds.. if you dont mind it taking some large chunk of time to make each part. it also seems to me the experience to pull off such parts on small equipmet would imply a decent ability to select said small equipment.

look for something big old and used, and retrofit it?

[307startup]

There is also the C6 CNC lathe from Syil USA (www.syilamerica.com). Again, power is a problem with the smaller machines. But a slow CNC will beat a very talented, accomplished manual machinist every time with a proven program. I am both a manual machinist and CNC operator/programmer/setup person and though I use a manual lathe at least once a day, I still take 5-10 times longer than the slowest CNC machine I have ever used. (That is not to say that I am a very talented, accomplished manual machinist...just that I know my way around a lathe, mill, radial drill press & surface grinder very well...well enough to know that I'm always learning)
Smithy (www.smithycnc.com) is talking about introducing a CNC lathe with very similar specs to the C6 Syil, though a complete system will still be in the $10-13,000 range before tooling. I have also heard rumblings that Tormach is planning on introducing a CNC lathe to their lineup. The indicated price range would be around $7000 give or take. Both of these options are still 3-6 months in the future, if at all.

[squale]

well the SYIL CNC C6 can be had for $4,500. does this include the Mach3 software and all? I have a laptop to run the software on.

how can the SYIL CNC C6 be less than $5K and the others be in the 10-13K range... is this SYIL CNC C6 just not very good? i wonder how the precision compares to the bigger more expensive CNC lathes.. such as a Hass TL-1 ?

does the SYIL CNC C6 use standard g-code the same as what is used on bigger cnc machines?

[vacpress]

wyld

i agree about the cnc always being faster than manual... the difference here might be a $5,000 but larger used lathe versus any 5k range new cnc lathe might be the roughing out on the metal parts.. they look like they would take hours on a small cnc machine and minutes on an old manual 2 or 3 ton machine. Also, i am skeptical about the time needed to learn all the cnc stuff when proposing a difficult task with (probably,it wasnt indicated) limited experience... not to mention how messy a small machine would get with each part, the drastic wear on the machine, trying to turn out 3.5" chunks of stainless on a machine meant for small stuff.

[vacpress]

squale

the syil cnc is based on a $700ish asian lathe.. like those at grizzly or enco.. so you are paying the other $3500 for ballscrews, motor drivers, power supply, etc.. plus the red paint!

also, these syil machines seem to be a product arising from a percieved hobby market, as where the other machines mentioned seem to be aimed at education..

in either case the intended use of these machines isnt turning big bunches of stainless parts... the delrin parts on the other hand would likely come off any of these machines very nicely. if you already have a workshop, perhaps jigs, indexers, or other manual devices could fill a gap...

the problem with these small cnc devices for producing comparitevely large parts is the mismatched scale... small everything wears fast when faced with a 3 or 4" thick piece of stainless... especially if the tooling isnt basically new. at least in my experience which isnt really in 4" stainless on small lathes, so what do i know.

i feel too negative though.. where there is will, maybe there is a way.. maybe a good program on these small machines with the right coolant, tooling, chip colection, etc...

the problem with engineering is the '2/3rds rule' - you want accuracy, speed, and low cost - you will only ever get 2 of these, at best... i dont know if i believe in this rule. rules are for squares, but there is a reason a job shop would want $300/part or more for these..

[squale]

well the main use of the machine would be for the plastics. I really don't need to do the stainless stuff, but the plastics would be the main parts that I would use this machine for. Would this SYIL CNC C6 be able to hande 3.5" diameter plastics and bore out the middle and put a radius inside the piece? how long do you think plastics would take on this machine?

[307startup]

Squale
Precision compared to a Haas TL-1...hmm...well, given adequate preparation and willingness to optimize your program for your machine, I'd say that you could produce a part just as precise on a C6 as on the TL-1. But you're comparing apples to jolly ranchers really. The C6 doesn't have much mass or much power compared to the Haas. And the Haas really isn't the benchmark for precision. I can appreciate what you're going through...but you can't expect to pay Ford Focus prices for Ferrari speed & handling and GMC Diesel ruggedness & reliability. If you really feel the need to CNC machine these yourself and you are patient or at least willing to learn what you don't know, the C6 could be a great way to bootstrap yourself to a point where you can afford to purchase an industrial lathe with all its own attendant headaches.

VacPress
I don't really recommend an older, used CNC machine for any person who is looking to do hobby or very small production runs. The hassles of chasing down parts or paying for service calls is way too much and just plain expensive. I went down this road when my old shop wanted a Hitachi Seiki off their premises to make room for a new Daewoo Puma. As part of the deal I also received a second, dead machine for parts. Aside from the boards and some mechanicals, almost nothing else was able to be used. The turret uses a cam mechanism that is hand fitted to each housing and "massaged" to work correctly with that housing via grinding and laboriously fiddling. I never could get the damn thing to run right and this was after I had been repairing and maintaining the machine (weekly, it seems) at work for the better part of a year BEFORE purchasing it from them. In the end, I sold it to someone else who was dead set that he had to have them to get his business started. I let him know exactly what he was getting into and they still sit in his shop immobile and inactive.

[squale]

well basically to give a little more background info, I have just completed a manual machine shop class at a county college and I wanted to get into CNC machining. Our family business is selling parts for packaging machinery and right now we sort of act like the middle man, such that I and my father go to companies and sell parts, I draw the parts up in Solidworks, we give the prints to our few different machine shops we use, they make the parts and we mark up their prices. Since I know how to measure and draw the parts, I am pretty computer savor (computer programmer by profession), I was also interested in learning how to actually machine some of these parts. I also have a younger brother who is about to finish highschool that wants to get involved in the family business. My dream is to one day open my own machine shop so that the work we sell to our customers we have full control over the pricing, delivery time frame, etc. if we have our own shop. So my brother would be very wise to learn machining and I also have an interest in learning some machining. I just need a CNC machine to make the parts we sell. Of course the more advanced parts we will always continue to have our main job shops make because they have the large high priced cnc equipment, but I would like to get a smaller cnc machine that can handle some of the parts we sell and at the same time learn how to operate a cnc machine, get my brother into it as well, and also learn the g-code, etc. I would assume the g-code used on these smaller Cnc lathes is the same g-code used on the larger industry grade lathes and mills right?

so as you can see I don't have a ton of money to make a large investment, I'm looking for a smaller cnc lathe that I can fit in my garage of my house and I really dont' want to get a phase 3 converter, so something that runs on 110 or 220 single phase would be very helpful. I would think that those plastic parts would be something that one of these small SYIL CNC C6 type cnc lathes could handle right? I just wonder how long it would take to cut one of these parts on a machine like that..

[307startup]

As I said before, given your willingness and desire, I think the C6 could be just the thing for your smaller parts. Expect cycle times to be measured in minutes rather than seconds and expect to experiment...a lot.
Depending on what software you use, the G & M codes will be the same as on industrial machines.
I think that you would be wise to do your research on the sources I gave you for hobby type CNC lathes, give yourself plenty of time to scrutinize, think & rethink your decision. Think some more. If after a month you are sure that you still want to plunk down the $5000 or more to purchase the machine, plus about $1-2000 more to properly tool up for the parts you wish to make, then by all means. If things don't go as planned, as least you have a toy you now are familiar with and know how to use. You own it, not the bank.

[erd39030]

I got both, my machining center and the cnc lathe for under $10K in ebay.
I think oldies are the good ones for starting a shop.

Everardo

[squale]

well some people say that buying a 5K cnc bench lathe now is a waste of money, because in the future I will probably want to upgrade to a larger industrial type of lathe. But what I don't get is why these people think I should go buy a 30K cnc lathe to start off as my first cnc lathe..

[erd39030]

Maybe they think that for the kind of parts you posted, specially the stainless one.
Even if you tell later that only want to machine plastics, the brain just have its first impression locked in.

Personally, the impression I have about smaller lathes, like a chucker or bench, is that their jobs are far below 1" in diameter. Usually 1/4" stuff.

Anyway. Can be $5K, $10K or $30K... there's always somebody who routinely makes $100,000 jobs, so your own anual budget is what he expends in one month tooling.

[squale]

yeah but don't forget, this machine is also to LEARN on. that's the other big factor, learning cnc hear..

is it possible to buy the C6 from say Grizzly and then put the CNC capability on it? does anybody know how much this costs to do and how hard it is to do for a first timer?

otherwise the Syli CNC C6 costs $4,500

thanks

[erd39030]

Learn... well... mmm

You better get a job in a shop first. The only thing worst that crashing a machine is to be the owner of it

Tooling is expensive, align the turret a bit complicated, and the service guy charges $100 hr to resucitate your machine after a lightning.

[KOS]

Squale,

Not sure what these are being used for and if this is even a viable option or not as I dont know if these are the only parts you are interested in making or not?

You may, and I repeat MAY be able to reproduce these using rubber molding and using liquid plastic. it is just a thought without much else to go off of it may not be a possiblity.

But you have to also consider these parts have a small slits cut in them, as well as other holes drilled, so these wont be easy to finish even on a CNC lathe.

[squale]

yeah I was thinking those slits and small holes in the plastic parts could be done with a lathe/mill combo? can you index at say 60 degrees with a lathe/mill to drill these holes?

if not I would need a mill with saw attachment to cut the slits and then drill the holes..

[KOS]

yeah there are a few different ways to be able to machine the slits or drill the holes. A mill drill combo is one option, also using a band saw as well in a fixture plate too..just really depends on the final application