CNC Lathes
 

I've been charged with the job of writing a proposal to our school's board of directors(private school) for new tools for our robotics programs. Because our robotics program both significantly lacks funding and space, I have been putting together different "plans" on ways our school could help sponsor our team. I was thinking of including a Haas CNC lathe in one of these plans but I'm not sure how much we would use it. I would love if people could tell me how useful they have found them to be, because if they aren't used a lot, I think the money and space could be better used on other machines. In addition could you please reccomend models. Thanks.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

I've mentored with a team for the last 5 years. We work out our design concepts where intricate lathe work is not a real need. There have been a few needs for cylindrical work over the years where we have made use of a 1940's South Bend lathe located in my basement (my kids have run this for the team). Typically this has been some special machining on a set of wheels or a shaft or two needing a drilled and tapped hole on the end, or possibly turned down to a metric-equivalent size.
I'm not convinced that a team with limited resources really needs a CNC lathe, or even a CNC mill. Last year our team purchased a drilling/milling machine with no CNC capabilities - but it is a wonderful machine for doing some light milling and precision drilling patterns for gear trains.
When we have a need for exotic machining, we look to our local machine shops for a donation of labor and have not yet come up short.
If you have restricted space, make use of it wisely. Loading it with equipment that has minor advantage is just not worth it.
Good luck!

Re: CNC Lathes
 

You're looking at 25-30k. Spend it somewhere else. If you have to ask if you should include it in your proposal, then you don't really need it. Especially given how many machine shops there are in the greater LA area that you could find to turn parts for you.

Focus on getting a well organized workspace and some quality manual machine tools.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

Does you school have any experience or back ground in machining? I will start with that question before I can offer any advice.


A good basic lathe can make anything FRC related just fine. This coming from school that has a CNC lathe.

With any type of machine there are extra costs in tooling and basic equipment. So it really is not just the cost of machine itself.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

If you can't think of how you will use it, it is probably a pointless investment.

You would be much better off buying an old South Bend (or other) lathe on Craigslist and fixing it up. Don't know how? No worries ask around to find a retired machinist in your community and I guarantee you'll make that guy's year. Not to mention you get to preserve (and use!) a piece of American history.

(And it'll be like two orders of magnitude cheaper, especially if it comes with tooling)

Re: CNC Lathes
 

This is really something that you have to discuss with your mentor. If a truck rolled up with a 4000 lb machine in your parking lot tomorrow, there is a good chance that it would sit outside for a couple of months (it does not fit through your doors?!?). Buying this style of machine is not a small undertaking. You need space, electricity, tooling as Lucas mentioned.

I would recommend looking at a CNC Router as your first CNC machine. Paton Group in Los Angeles sells TechnoCNC Routers and you will be able to easily cut any kind of plastic and wood. You don't need much tooling to do so and they sell specifically to the educational market. They can also sell you MasterCAM educationally.

You should look at forming a partnership with a local community college to get training in machining if you intend to do machining. At the CNC mill level, Tormach has advertised here on CD and it seems to be a good starter mill.

Our team has two Haas TM-1's and two TL-1's. Machines of this caliber are useless without training and knowledgeable people around. A mill is more flexible and therefore more useful in the immediate sense. A lathe can do things that a mill cannot and is therefore complementary.

Show this post to your mentor and have them contact Lucas or myself. We are both in the South Bay (Los Angeles) area.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

We don't have any experience doing any serious machining(lathe + mill) except for one of our mentors. That said, a cnc would not be a substitute for manual equipment. Both manual lathes and mills are tools that are the top of of my list regardless. The only things that I can think of off the top of my head that would need a CNC lathe is a shifting block like the ones 254 uses and WCD output shafts if we got live tooling with the lathe. I would also assume that it would speed up the operations that you can do on a manual lathe, though I don't know because we've never done CAM and setup for a CNC part. The above considered, I would want to know if the cnc lathe has sped up the machining process for your team considerably, because if it has I would want to include it in my proposal.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

One of my team's sponsors (who also gives us building space) has a CNC lathe we utilized last year to make pulley wheels on the cheap. We had him make about 40 of them from what I recall. That would have been a REAL hassle on a manual lathe (if not impossible to get the precision).

Re: CNC Lathes
 

That would be an operation done on a mill (CNC or manual) with a 4th axis with roughing/circlip-groves done on a manual lathe.

I can't think of any part that you would make for an FRC robot that couldn't be made on a manual lathe. The only advantage of a CNC lathe I can think of is the high turnaround time and the repeatability, but if you or anyone on your team has never run one before I can guarantee it will be a while before you gain either of those benefits.

CNC machines are not magical part producing machining, they require a lot of knowledge and expertise to operate. I would highly recommend that you spend your money elsewhere.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

I wouldn't suggest including a Haas CNC lathe. It's only advantage would be in producing large quantities of complex parts, short of that whatever you need can be done on a manual machine. In addition Haas CNC lathes aren't very good, and have been known to machine tapers (Haas mills excellent though).

I would instead suggest looking at quality manual lathes with full tooling, or CNC milling machines.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

This is a $100,000-150,000 machine.

I would stick with finding sponsors to make you stuff. Especially if you are only making one robot worth of parts.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

We do make two robots, but now that I think about it, we wouldn't even be machining duplicate parts in high quantities(other than drive). Actually we almost lost a sponsor last year due to the workload we gave them, so we're trying to not repeat that during this next build season. I know multiple people have mentioned south bend for manual lathes and I also happen to know that 254 has a Jet(or at least had one). Do both of these companies make ok fine lathes for FRC purposes?

Re: CNC Lathes
 

I've actually heard that sme of 254's members were not fans of the Jet (because of the tail stock, mainly). We use a Grizzley manual lathe, which we have really come to love. It's broken a few times, but when properly taken care of, it really is an excellent machine to learn on or work with.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

There are probably hundreds if not many hundreds of machine shops within a reasonable distance of you. I would be surprised if you can't find multiple shops to assist you with CNC machining.
JET does not make good machines.

JET/Grizzly/etc are all made by the same factories, with different paint jobs and name plates. The only difference is country of origin. If it came from Taiwan it might be pretty decent to good. If it came from China it's almost certainly garbage. Maybe it'll last for awhile under light use and maybe you can still make good parts with it, but it will require 20x more work/operator skill to keep it running well.

Unfortunately there isn't a large market out there for really high quality new manual lathes. There's a few, but they're all $15,000+ for a 13x40 sized machine.

If you're writing a proposal for funding I'm guessing buying used is not an option. If so, you're either spending a lot of money for a high quality machine or half as much for a machine that will probably work fine for 4-5 years and then start showing issues due to quality, depending on how demanding you are of your machinery.

If you can buy used and have someone who can identify a good machine and help fix anything that might be wrong with it, you can find a machine that will be around in 30 years and still making good parts.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

Standard-Modern is still in business and makes great lathes from 13 to 26" including CNC versions. I believe they're still made in Canada and available in the US. They were the standard (no pun intended) lathe in many school shops for years. Loads of used ones available.

http://www.standard-modern.com/index.html

South Bend is still making lathes as well. My 9" was built in 1926 and still works well.

http://www.southbendlathe.com/

Re: CNC Lathes
 

I remember looking at Standard Modern and the machines looked great... Other than being something like $18000 for a North American made model.

I believe South Bend is South Bend in name only. I recall that they were sold to an Asian machine tool manufacturer.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

Interesting thread on the history and current manufacture of South Bend lathes

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb...-today-200466/

And another one on Standard Modern. Seems they're now made in Pennsylvania. Note the price of a 13x34.

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/thr...-Modern-Lathes

Re: CNC Lathes
 

We acquired (as in free) a small CNC lathe early this year. I have a fair amount of experience with manual lathes and mills, but as others have said, these type machines require a knowledgeable person to set up, maintain and teach it -or- a LOT of work by someone to get up to speed. I've been pecking away at learning it for the past 3-4 months and feel capable but very slow. We now have a few programs to turn retainer ring grooves on the end of hex axles, make Colson hubs, etc but seriously... with the amount of work I've put into this I could have turned 1000 axles. The kids dig running it but we probably run it manually more often than under CNC. I just put in a request for a nice manual lathe... along with a manual mill that should service 99% of what we need.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

Cory would you mind posting some links to the 15k+ machines you were talking about? We just might be able to get the funding for a lathe that expensive, and for a machine that we would use constantly it would be a worthwhile investment into the future of our team.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

Before you consider a CNC you need to ask yourself about the tool chain that you use and how does a CNC plug into that? How do you plan to get and maintain CAM software?

Way to often I see school buy a nice expensive CNC without CAM software and/or someone that knows how to use it; then it becomes a nice expensive paper weight.

Are students going to be trained on a manual lathe before using the CNC? If not what are you going to due to ensure that your machine is not always broken? Generally I recommend that a student know how to work a manual and learns the basics before working on a CNC.

Onto the machine. I generally recommend the Haas toolroom lathes. They can be ran in a near manual mode which is good for teaching basic lathe work and then you can slowly introduce CNC concepts. One cool thing about Haas is that the control is almost the exact same between the mill and lathe making learning both alot easier and allow you to focus more on teaching machine and not teaching the CNC control system.

Hope this helps if you want to reach out to me directly just PM me.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

I love the Haas control panel, but the quality of their lathes is not great. They have serious issues holding a constant diameter when turning, small adjustments in offset (.0001") often leads to much bigger changes in actual part size, and faces quite frequently don't end up flat. I was making some parts that had to be 2.48" +/- .0004", and if you bumped the offset up by .0001", you could expect to see the diameter increase by at least .0004". It was an absolute nightmare to hold those tolerances. Keeping another part flat and parallel to within .005" was incredibly difficult as well. It took a lot of taper adjustments on the facing operation to really dial it in to cut the face flat.

For FRC purposes, these tolerances probably won't matter, but anyone buying one of these machines should be aware of its tolerance issues. They're cheap, and I guess they're decent machines, but you definitely aren't going to see the same level of quality as you will in their vertical mills (which can also be a little lacking sometimes).

Re: CNC Lathes
 

Older Haas lathes are known to be of suspect quality but the new ST and SS series are supposed to be much better.

The tolerances you were trying to hold are well within the range of what the machine can achieve. Sounds like there's something physically wrong with it.

Re: CNC Lathes
 

That was why it was so incredibly frustrating. We were running a few SL-20s, and they all seemed to have similar problems just a few months after purchase. Some of the jobs needed to be higher tolerance than what the SL-20s were specced to hold, so we ran them on our other machines without issues. It was always a gamble running jobs on the Haas machines if they were close to the machine limit.

But if the newer series are improved, that sounds like a pretty good choice in machine. The Haas control is much more user friendly and intuitive than a standard Fanuc.