![]() ![]() This will allow me to implement live tooling and maintain the tailstock for those 15% jobs I still need it. The plan is to remove the back splash plate and extend it another 8-10” back and machine a block of cast for a new upper dovetail carriage block giving me another 6” of travel and wider platform with 1/2” more height to utilize a larger, longer ballscrew. I’ve contemplated just building an entirely new machine as well but this one is already prime to modify and won’t take much for me to do besides already having ball screws and parts here to build it. This way I can leave the existing motor and vfd as is taking advantage of the gear box for various needs. Also it can maintain a through shaft up to 1” doing this not that I really use the feature much. I have the room to fix a large 120/150t module gear at the end of my spindle and with internal threading can make it removable so I can service if needed. I want to add a c axis with a brake and like the idea of a disengaging gear driven setup but I have been breaking my brain thinking about ways to go about it. Currently I am building an ac servo driven turret using a 21 spline shaft and taper bearing collar to engage tooling with live tooling at one side and a small 40mm ac Servo enclosed at the other end for rotation with pneumatic unlock. Are these manufactured turn centers or private builds? If private builds are there links to them? I’m wanting to do almost exactly this to my lathe. Just enter your name and email address below: Our Free GCode Programming Basics Course.Our Big List of over 200 CNC Tips and Techniques.Plus, we’ll give you access to some great CNC reference materials including: Join 100,000+ CNC'ers! Get our latest blog posts delivered straight to your email inbox once a week for free. Most live tools include a coupler that allows the turret to drive the live tool spindle:Ī Live Tool Angle Head: Power coupler is on the right, collet for tool on the left…Ī simpler approach adaptable for lightweight work and gang tooling is to use an air-driven spindle:Įven a small router motor could be pressed into service as this gang-tooling rig on a mill shows: Live Tooling: When a toolholder becomes a milling spindle Some sort of clutching mechanism would be used to decouple the C-Axis position servo when the main spindle drive is in operation. The gear-driven C-axis makes me wonder how the avoid backlash? Here’s one more that is cog belt driven: Note the disc brake for locking the axis… ![]() Lathe C-Axis uses a gear-driven sub-servo. Here’s another lathe with a sub-servo for the C-axis: It’s not visible in the photo, but it’s encoder (or possibly a transmission to engage/disengage it) as well as the cog belt system it uses to drive the main spindle are there.Ĭonstruction is pretty straightforward. – There is an auxilliary spindle indexing servo. – The spindle is driven by a couple of large multi-groove belts. Considerable side force can be applied during C-Axis operations and it is often important to be able to lock the axis while that happens. – There is a toothed gear and hydraulic spindle lock. – There is a collet pulling mechanism to open or close the collet or chuck. We can see a number of interesting functions from the photo: Think of it as the brute force approach.Īnother approach is to use a secondary servo that may be engaged or disengaged. One obvious answer, used in many machines, is to use a servo as the spindle motor. How does one convert a spindle into a C-Axis indexer? Instead of an ordinary lathe tool in a turret position, there’s a miniature motorized spindle that can hold endmills, twist drills, saws, or whatever else is needed. This allows positioning the part with great position to any angle. The secret behind these machines is two-fold:įirst, they have the ability to treat the spindle as another axis, called the C-Axis. Here’s a great video of a Haas CNC lathe turning out such a part: They combine the best elements of a lathe and a milling machine to turn out complex parts quickly that would be much less productive if done as multiple ops across different machines. I’m fascinated by the mill-turn machines. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |