New lathe = cheap things for you!

its possible but i do not know how well i can do round stuff. i could stair step it but i am always up for trying anything.
would it be ovay if it was not a perfectly round shape but small steps?

Stepping instead of round is perfectly fine by me, even sounds cool! I'd just be happy to get a custom heatsink. Even leaving the round 1" stock a cylinder would work too, that would make for some good heat absorption The tricky 'make-or-break' part is left of dotted vertical line - the end that inserts into the host. Btw, that 2x1mm groove just left of the line is going to match with one in the host, and house an o-ring

If you can easily do a straight cut, but at an angle, that'd be a cool looking piece (#2 below). Couple of other ideas in there too. Not a machinist myself, no experience at all, so not sure how easy/hard certain cuts may be...:yabbem: #3 is the "Ultimate" design from this "series"

Just throwing some ideas out there, hopefully wont be too much trouble to make... Would greatly appreciate any custom machining I can get :beer:

KIY ---
Enjoy your lathe -- It will be a learning experience. Everyone now will want you to machine the most oddball stuff you can imagine for cheep!!! Ignore them and enjoy the learning of how to turn neet stuff.
I made the prototype Kryton groove head on my lathe. That's all I could do and it was fun.

Enjoy your lathe.

HMike

@comradex --- He has a basic lathe and you really think it has NC? REALLY, REALLY?

Something like this will let you turn a limited set of curves on a mini lathe. If you have a mill you can make something similar fairly cheap.

LittleMachineShop.com - Ball and Radius Turning Tool, Small, OMW

I recommend upgrading to brass or bronze gibs and polishing the ways, the gibs that come with the lathe will wear everything down a lot faster than brass or bronze would. Polishing everything will increase the tolerances you can cut to slightly, everything on these little lathes comes pretty rough from the factory.

Good luck, and don't cut any fingers off!

Well it will be NC controlled very soon.
In about a month.
i am taking my stepper motors of my cnc machine and going to belt rig them up to this machine so i can still use it by hand then set it to zero and let the machine run its stuff.
But that will be its own thread if i decide to document the whole process.
i fixed a major problem on my lathe late last night.
I took apart the whole moving gantry and tool holding apparatus.
And it now has a much smaller wobble on the cutting tool.
i know where the problem is its these 3 screws for the 3rd aixiz on my lathe that hold it together and i only seem to use the 2 and the third just sits there.
Would it be a bad idea to weld it solid? no matter how much i tighten those screws they seem to come loos after less than an hours work...
I tried locktight but that only helped for a bit. i will try to get a pic when i take it apart to show you my problem.
But its small enough now that i am just being nit picky after all i did pick this thing up for less than 550$.

Are you talking about the three set screws on the compound slide?



These ones?

If you are, those are the set screws to adjust the gibs. On a new lathe you'll probably have to adjust them a lot at first, the gibs themselves are a hard metal and the ways are really rough. As you move the slide back and forth it pretty much sands those rough patches down eventually making it fit loose. If you polish the ways and make up some brass or bronze gibs it will help immensely but you don't want to weld them in place.

If your thinking of going CNC you really need to consider pulling the whole thing apart and cleaning it up a good bit. These things are pretty rough from the factory and they have a lot of drag when they are tightened up as much as they should be. You'll either loose a lot of steps or a lot of accuracy unless you smooth everything out.

My little lathe is actually in pieces right now, I'm working on polishing everything up and aligning the spindle parallel to the ways. After I get all of that done I'm going to swap the lead screws to some cheap ball screws and mount up some little steppers. CNCing these things is pretty easy, the hard part is keeping them in shape after running it for a while.

Check out the benchtop machines sub forum on cnczone.com, there is just about everything you ever wanted to know about CNCing mini lathes and mills in there.

Buy some of these:

Intel LGA Socket 775 CPU Heatsink Fan E5200 E6300 E6400 - eBay (item 260666290564 end time Sep-23-10 13:59:09 PDT)

Drill a hole in them, and make a setscrew, then resell them as super-efficient heatsinks with optional fans.

I'd buy one.

So you say crazy... could you machine my isotype?



Lots of curves for you to practice

no my problem is under that.
If you look at that 3rd axis you will see a dial if you look under that you will see 3 screw that is what hold it bolted down.
That is what seems to be my problem.
Seeing as i am not using that Axis any way i wanted to know if i could get rid of it somehow.

Third axis? Lathes are only two axis machines, X and Z. You can think of X as depth of a cut and Z as length of a cut.

The third axis I think you might be referring to is called the compound rest, it sets the tool at an angle for turning tapers, chamfers and threading. Lots of people remove the compound rest, but you really don't want to mess with the cross slide (that is the one that only goes straight in, the X axis slide.) You need the cross slide to CNC, in fact most people remove the compound rest because it's not too stable (and you don't need it to turn tapers if your using a computer!)

You might take the cross slide off and check the gib in there to see if it's broken or not, the material they used from the factory is crap and they are known to split really easy. You're going to have to get used to adjusting the gibs though, that's a fairly common task on a lathe.

Check this out here, this will knock down the rough factory finish so you won't have to adjust them as much.

Mike Taglieri's Lapping Procedure

This might help you out a little too

Mini Lathe Tuning

So, can a lathe only do round parts?
I was trying to make an aluminum heatsink with a 25mm x 35mm footprint and a 12.7mm hole in it with the center of the hole at 10mm up from the base.
K, would you be able to make this for me? And, if so, how much?

i do have other tools i can cut square stock.
But i would need a sketch to see what you want.

PM sent!!

kiyoukan said:

i do have other tools i can cut square stock.
But i would need a sketch to see what you want.

Click to expand...

I'll work on it.
In the meantime, imagine a modworx heatsink:

With a 25mm by 35mm footprint, and the module-hole slightly larger (0.7mm) and slightly lower on the face of the block.
How much do you estimate it would cost?
Thanks.:beer:

as far as the hole goes i can only do 15/32 or 12mm or 31/64
so if any of those fit the size you want let me know.
and must it me exactly that size does it need fins?

kiyoukan said:

as far as the hole goes i can only do 15/32 or 12mm or 31/64
so if any of those fit the size you want let me know.
and must it me exactly that size does it need fins?

Click to expand...

Cool.
Yeah 12mm is fine, I can bore it out to 12.7mm (have a strange 12.5mm-diam green module for it).
I would like fins, but they aren't necessary, I will be using a fan as well in my build.
The base can't be any larger than 25mm x 35mm because I can't move any of the other stuff (PCBs, motors, etc..) in my build.
I really just want a rough idea of price.
Thanks :yh: