[squale]

well my main concern is those ID and OD radius cuts, then need to be smooth as a baby's butt, I don't think you can do that with a manual machine... that's why I think a cnc would be a better match or this type of job??? I am mainly talking about the plastic parts here..

[KOS]

oh for sure, those radius cuts would be ideal for a cnc lathe. You can do it manually but it will take a lot of practice, specially to reproduce them with accuracy. I have machined thousands of delrin/acetal parts on my small and large lathe manually, and all of that can be done with great finish result. Now I am adding one of the headstocks on my small lathe to my X3 mill to have a turning center/4th axis.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45602

That is my machine...I dont think a lot of people like my coolant tray idea but my shop is literally packed with not much room for anything else so the idea of building an full enclosure wasnt one I wanted since I would loose valuable table space.

[squale]

well if this part can be made on one of these CNC bench lathes here is a drawing you can download, does anybody want to quote it? I would need 12 pieces. And also quote for 24 pieces. There are 3 files in here, a Solidworks part file, a Solidworks drawing file and a .DXF drawing file.
http://www.jkevin.com/solidworks/Quo...sert_Quote.zip

[vacpress]

squale..

the plastic parts, from experience, would go very well on a smallish cnc lathe. with some decent programming they look like their cycle times would be around 2 minutes each, plus the manual center drilling.. the slits could be cut accurately and efficiently with a simple jig and a band saw with an appropriately thick blade, likewise even a router table, or an improvised router table with a small laminate trimmer and jig would be ok. a jig for this could be made pretty easily, especially if you didnt mind hiring someone. i could imagine making a jig for this for a bandsaw for you for under $200(aluminum plate, delrin bushings for the table slots, indexing rotary mount for part., not that 'just any' shop would do it for that price. that is just an example, not a proposition so much, rfq site might actually deliver a very low quote on these parts in general, given the type of competition there.

a $750 imported lathe seems to me to need about $1000+/- $500 of parts put into it to make it into something like the c6. you need 2 stepper drivers, 2 stepper motors, 2 motor mounting plates, 4 pulleys, 2 mxl belts, a parallel port card (get a $150ish one that has the lathe indexer inputs, etc.. unless you are good with electronics and can figure all that out), a method of indexing the lathe chuck, and some tooling.. all ofthis can be had for around $2000
then to do the slots, a manual mill and bandsaw can both be purchased new or used for aroud $2000 more or less for something worth owning. $1000 will get you new tools from harborfreight.com. a mill drill, lathe, and bandsaw from them will be under $2000 upto about $4500 for better stuff. to cnc it all is like another $2000/machine. allot less could still do a good job on these plastic parts.

at that point you would have a small but flexible shop setup that fits in a corner and can make very accurate parts with automation to do the hardest surfaces. you may find the learning curve steep though. i know i took a few years of casual interest before being able to really make good parts.. but, i always had to rely on my own pathetic income to purchase tools and stuff. it took 5 years in my case of constant bargain hunting, etc. to get a decent shop together... and i still couldnt make the parts you have specified except as prototypes.. once i cnc my small lathe, that would be another story.



oh, and as for doing a rubber mold of these parts.. it will be hard to make concentric round parts using molding. also, without looking at the parts again, it seems to me you will pretty much still have to chuck them to center drill. If these parts are more like adapters and dont spin or have strict concentricity requirements, molding might be a very good and inexpensive option. then you just need a small manual lathe to center drill. or, you could try and put a plug in the mold, but that is not an operation i would want to do without facilities.

i just wouldnt recommend this exact method

[vacpress]

i dunno. there are also some pretty easy methods to just index the parts on the lathe to do the slits...

to index the part you could simply manually layout and grind in indexing marks on the lathe chuck and devise a clamp to hold it, with practice, accuracy would likely be quite good, some sort of spring loaded indents is what i would do, probably. not sure if it would be recommended, but maybe a simple tapped hole and bolt would work - ask someone else about that!

mount a dremel on the slide, and put a 1/16" or 1/32 endmill with 1/8" shank in it..

use some sort of hack saw blade and a special 'mitre-fixture'..

i think the short answer is you can do the plastic parts with small equipment, the stainless parts would be much more difficult but still possibly for an intrepid programmer and setup savant. figuring out how to deal with the flood coolant and not hurt your cute little c6 would be my first interest

[squale]

you don't need coolant for the plastic parts right? but definately for the metal parts?

[vacpress]

the plastic parts might benefit from a airjet, but otherwise, no, no coolant.. someone correct me if i am wrong. i teach myself most things, and look for reference sources when needed. i suggest getting a copy of 'machinery's handbook', as well as 'machine shop practice'.

combined, these 2 books or sets are invaluable. other great books include ones of the '1001 mechanisms' varieties. look on ebay, or on amazon. i have dozens of such books in my design library.

[DDzHere]

Squale you could buy a heavy old turret lathe to rough your parts in and then finish them on a table top cnc.This way all the heavy cuts will be done by the turret lathe which can be picked up cheaply.And the finished dimension VIA the inexpensive cnc.

[KOS]

well a couple things I didnt read anywhere..what is the quantity you need to make, a handfull or in the thousands? And price range. a few dollars or $100 each?

So these are for the packaging industry correct? Which are the most import dimensions that need to be taken into consideration?

Is it just the bottom portion which looks like it has some sort of lock fit. and if it is for packaging is the hole just for items to fall into? so as long as it is smooth are all the dims that important?

There are many different ways to make these parts, but there are other considerations as well. If you get yourself stuck with one certain machine to make these exact parts, it may not be what is most import.

There are lots of jigs and fixtures you can build and use cheaper machines along side of a small cnc lathe, instead of buying multiple pieces of eqiupment that may not even serve another purpose. Also the selling price is another factor, compared to what tolerances you actually need. Again I will go back to either rubber molding or injection molding. These CAN be very good alternatives, and no you dont need the right facility to make these.

You could make these parts with a 7x10 cnc'd lathe with xylotex board and a few steppers , and have a band saw at $150, and a drill press for $99, all of it could be had for around $1k. But not sure if that would serve the long term purpose.

I made parts off a 7x10 lathe for some time until i was able to purchase a larger lathe, but my point is my 7x10 lathe paid for a second 7x10 and a 11X26, a cnc X3 mill, anodizing, powedercoating, and sheet metal equipment.

You can easily over engineer these parts. But there is a few more pieces of info needed to really figure this out.

[squale]

none of my parts are production runs, everything is one of these, two of these, or maybe at most like 25 of these. The tolorences can be +/- .005" but I like to stay within the .002 range. These parts sell anywhere from $100 a piece to some of the stainless steel parts I make being $1K+ per piece. The cheapest parts I make are usually no less than $50 per piece.

[KOS]

hmm doesnt really sound like there is too much money it then unless you get lots of orders for the stainless ones. It may almost be more worth it to get a board member to help you for some extra money...

[squale]

you mean just have a board member make my parts instead of buying machines to do it myself?

[erd39030]

If Kos suggestion is to get somebody else to do your parts, just for money issues, then I disagree.
It is important the formative part (and the fun) of this profession, to actually cut chips by yourself and learn that "is not the way I tought it was". You actually have a product to sell and the customers. That is the most difficult part to do: Get customers.

[KOS]

Yes that was what I was suggesting to try and partner up with another board member to make parts.

ERD39030, the reason I suggested this, is I am not 100% squale is doing this out of a hobby or if it is strictly business. As well if it is only these handful of parts that were shown before and at low quantities, then it may be a better decision to look for a home shop machinist to make these for him instead of buying them from a larger machine shop that would charge much more.

Now if there are other ideas, or it was a hobby driven venture then that is different. And my advice is probably not warranted.

I have a small business where my parts have all been my design, made by me and then sold around the world. I have been very crafty in how I make stuff as well as sell it. I also understand that if it is low quantity and just a handful of parts that it will take a while just to get some ROI on the machines purchased. Looking at it from a business stand point I have no idea how long the ROI would take, and at that point you have compare that to how much money would be made having a board member make them for you....Not to mention the learning curve. It is not like a cnc lathe will show up today and a part will be of sellable value tomorrow. There is a pretty big learnin curve, which can also translate into loss of value for the company...but on the flip side down the road it may be worth it...this is just my .02

If there are underlining factors here I am missing, then obviously I am off base.

[squale]

KOS,
from a business standpoint I fully agree with your recommendation. Why? well because right now I have a couple small machine shops making my parts for me, and they are pretty good on their rates, charging about $60 an hour for their machining time and they don't kill me on their material prices, etc. The one shop we currently use is just a one-man shop and he does 100% of our work, actually he only does our work. To give you an idea, we paid him last year $350K in parts, and for every year going back for about the last 6 years we paid him an average of about 275K per year. So I think he is doing damn good, before this he was only making 40K a year at a larger machine shop where he was employeed. Anyhow, from a business standpoint I know that the learning curve would be huge and that it would take away from my time in going out and getting more work and selling more parts. But I'm more interested in actually getting some small cnc machines to get my younger brother (who is a junior in hs) into this machining field so that in hopes one day he can open his own machine shop and make the parts for our family business. I myself have taken a college machine shop using only manual machines and I am a computer programmer by profession so the cnc machines interest me and I always wanted to learn how to cut parts myself more for the learning and hobby part of it. When it comes to seriously making a living as a machinist well I could make much more money just going out and selling parts and having them made by other shops and charging my markup (middle man fee) to the customer. This way my income isn't limited by how many chips I personally can cut in an hour, but instead by how many jobs I can sell. I also draw and engineer the parts in Solidworks so I have the know-how of how to engineer new parts or reverse engineer existing parts and provide drawings to machine shops. So as my work load gets bigger, I just find more shops. I don't work with large machine shops because all of my work is small run stuff which is constnatly changing. I literally sells HUNDREDS of different parts, new parts I've never sold each week. So a small shop that is able to adapt to change quickly and make a variety of parts is what I'm looking for.

I just started looking at buying some small cnc lathe and mill machines so I could sort of learn it as a hobby and maybe make some of the parts myself when time permits but mainly to get my younger brother into the trade and give him a place to learn how to use the machines. Unfortunately the machine shops courses around here are all in manual machining (which is important at first), but they don't really offer much in the way of cnc machining or at least the cnc machines they have are huge production orientated cnc machines which are different then the cnc machines that our shops use on a daily basis to make our small run jobs. So I wanted to find the most economical way to get a small cnc setup going in my garage so that I could play around with it and also my brother could start learning the trade at a young age in hopes that 2-3 years down the road he will be able to start making some nice parts which I could buy from him instead of outsourcing the work to other shops as I am doing now.

I hope this gives a little more detail into what I'm interested in doing. But by all means I am also looking for good quality machine shops (small shops) that are up for taking on onesies, twosies, etc. and can give good pricing with good turn around times.

[KOS]

oooh...yeah! there is the underlining info I was missing! So not sure if budget is a big issue or not. Sounds like you have some time to get things settled and figured out and possibly even do some of the building yourself then.

Here is my personal reccomendation then. Take a look at a CNC X3 mill, then add on a head stock where you can use it as a lathe attachment and even add a stepper for a 4th axis to. Then pick up one of the 8x14 lathes for any manual work...

It may give you a few more options down the road as well. You could even do a cnc on the 8x14 with xylotex and steppers for inexpensive...if your budget allows more, then just upgrade these ideas...

[squale]

could you elaborate more on the headstock for lathe operations on a cnc x3? I don't know how this could work putting a lathe on a mill?

[KOS]

well you will have to do some modifications. basically you will need to mount a tool post on the mill head in order to be able to use it in a turning application, but mach has a turning function so you will be able to use that. You will just have to configure the Z as your Y etc etc...

here is a pic of mine so far. It is not finished, I still need to add a fixture plate for it all, and make a tool post holder.

But in the end you will end up with a CNC mill and a cnc lathe as well with a bunch of capabilities. Then by adding another lathe to the shop you could open the door to endless possiblities. Not sure on your budget, so you could go either smaller or larger with the lathe and mill etc etc.

I have the cnc X3, a 7x10 lathe that I recently converted to a 7x19 lathe and a 11x26 lathe so i am set up to build a lot of different stuff now.

[squale]

cool idea.. how are you going to mount a tool post on the spindle of the mill head? and aren't you basically doing the same thing as what a lathe + mill combo does currently?

where did you get just the lathe turning motor, headstock and chuck from? can you set this up for indexing, so you can hold round stock and say index it at every 30 degrees and then drill a hole with the mill head? sorta like getting a mill and putting a 4th axis indexer on it?

how much did the cnc x3 cost you? did you buy it already made from Syil or did you buy a regular non-cnc x3 and then make it cnc capable?

[KOS]

no I wont be mounting the tool post to the spindle, as that turns, so the collet holder will either have to be removed and a special made holder that bolts to the underside of the mill head made to hold the tool post, or make a mounting plate that bolts on the underside or possible even front to hold the tool post so the collet holder could remain in there at all times. Still a work in progress so I will have to see what I think will work best for me.

I had 2 of those 7x10 lathes in my shop, so i took off one head stock and used it for the mill, and then cut down the bed on that one and attached it to my other 7x10 lathe to give me 7x19 now. so that leaves me with the 2 lathes as well as the cnc set up..

Havent put any thought to indexing the lathe head, i would imagine you could add that to it as well and have the whole lathe tilt...just add in another axis to move that..

I bought the X3 from grizzly, then went through ken at www.kdntool.com for the cnc kit, with ball screws etc. I am running gecko G203V's for the controllers. I have a joy stick for it as well that I need to finish setting up. I basically just ordered everything I needed, shipped it to Ken and shortly after that I got a complete bolt on kit along with the set up file for mach. He probably offers the most complete turn key you can find that is just bolt on and go...then after the lathe head and joystick are done I will continue to work on the auto tool changer...

If you are thinking about drilling the holes the same, you could just easily cnc the part out using the lathe attachment. build a fixture plate so you could then just run the mill and drill in your holes.