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Unread 01-07-2015, 16:04
MrRoboSteve MrRoboSteve is offline
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AKA: Steve Peterson
FRC #3081 (Kennedy RoboEagles)
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Rookie Year: 2011
Location: Bloomington, MN
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Re: Critique our lathe choice

Thank you everyone for your input.

To summarize so far:

Some people think the very inexpensive 120v lathe is OK. Others don't like it.

Some people think a moderately priced Chinese 220v lathe is OK. Others don't like it.

It was suggested that I look for a used older high quality American/German/Japanese/Korean made lathe. I saw an acquaintance last night who is in the machine tools business, and asked him about this. His statement was that high quality used lathes are very difficult to find in Minnesota, because no one is getting rid of them. The machine shop owners are keeping their old lathes and putting them in the corner, in case they need to use them. Unlike other parts of the country that had large numbers of machine shops that have failed, that wasn't the case here.

He of course would be happy to sell me a $15k Taiwanese lathe, one of which he sold into our sister high school last year. It looks quite nice, but is beyond our budget currently.
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2016-17 events: 10000 Lakes Regional, Northern Lights Regional, FTC Burnsville Qualifying Tournament

2011 - present · FRC 3081 Kennedy RoboEagles mentor
2013 - present · event volunteer at 10000 Lakes Regional, Northern Lights Regional, North Star Regional, Lake Superior Regional, Minnesota State Tournament, PNW District 4 Glacier Peak, MN FTC, CMP
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