Re: Cam Lathe

>From: Bill Wanliker --Date: Thu Aug 24, 2000 8:36pm
>
>Is anyone on the list using CAM on a lathe successfully? If so pleas post
>some details for the list and me. What software? Problems? Successes?
>What lathe, and drives? Anything else I have missed asking.
>
>Ron, will the CCNC program have any provisions for using on a lathe?

Bill and list.
Not actually using one at the moment but between panics I'm converting an
old Guildemeister CNC lathe to a more modern setup.
This came out of a college with very few hours on it. It's built as a CNC
but it's more like a manual lathe in build up. Quick change toolpost as
opposed to a turret but it uses all the 36" long bed which suits my work.
Originally it had a Siemens servo system with resolvers on it and a queer
Fanuc controller built specially for Guildemeister that programmed in
blocks. You built a program up from these set blocks. 250 line program
limit and all MDI. No program storage only one program backup.
After a lot of heart searching whether I should scrap this or convert it I
decided to convert it due to the very good condition it was in.
Looked at a lot of options before deciding on the latter choice.

Motors were changed from the original Siemens to SEM's with tacho's and
encoders with their matching Baldor drive cards from a scrap Audit
attachment.These will increase the resolution from 0.01mm to 0.003mm from
the original resolver setup.

Controller was scrapped and there was only a choice of either Ahha or
Microkinetics as these two are the only low cost programs that can handle
spindle encoders. None of the others, EMC, Flashcut etc can handle this at
present. Between the two I chose Ahha as it is a far better presented
program, has brilliant support in the UK, and has a macro language so that
certain tasks can be macro controlled as opposed to being programmed via
the cam system.

Cam system:-
So far this hasn't finally been resolved. I have a program called Dolphin
that can do lathe OK according to the examples but I haven't actually used
it yet.
Tim Markoski from alt.machines.cnc is the agent for powerstation which also
does lathe. He has written a post processor for me to try out with the demo
and it looks to put out good code.
I know Fred Smith is dying to tell us about his Quick Code program so I'll
leave that to him. I have no experience of Vector but Bobcad which is
advertised as a lathe program isn't one at all. No grooving, no screw
cutting and no part off which are all day to day processes.
I don't think that a cam program for a lathe is all that difficult as most
of the work for a CNC lathe is reasonably straight forward, unlike a miller
where a program can run into many thousands of lines.

Due to work pressure I'm about 2 to 3 months away from completing this
refit but it will be worth it. Purely used a roughing tool this will save
me a lot of work even on one offs.

--

Regards,
John Stevenson
Nottingham, England