CNC Lathe Info

[Derek]

I don't have my UC300ETH connected, but I have the UC300ETH plugin installed, and I don't see what you are seeing when I just tried the wizard.

If it is someking of Mach3 bug then it could be Mach3 version dependent. Maybe you have a different version of mach installed than what Derek has. I did not try the wizard yet though with any versions yet.

It happens when I install the plugin. Before no issues. This is on a clean Mach install version 3.043.062. For my particular lathe there really isn't any reason to run Mach and the UC-300. The PP/HDBB2 seems to working great. I don't seem to have any issues with single index threading. I have an extra UC-300USB and a copy of UCCNC so I thought It would be nice to have all my machines the same. The lathe is the last of my 5 machines that hasn't been converted from Mach.

[asuratman]

Vmax,
Do you think building cnc lathe using uccnc/ub1 will be easier than mach3/mach4 ?

[Battwell]

constant surface speed is a must - spindle speeds up as diameter decreases

[Gary Campbell]

For my wood lathe project not so likely a must, but for metal, most assuredly so. Due to lathe specific approach/exit angles and the ability to define most lathe tooling, along with spindle encoder support, I have moved my lathe (one metal and this small one for wood over to Centroid Acorn control.

[Derek]

constant surface speed is a must - spindle speeds up as diameter decreases

Only a must if you are doing a lot of facing. I do a fair amount of lathe work and I don't have a VFD so CSS is not an issue. Of course it would be best if it had CSS but for probably a lot of people it isn't a deal breaker. For me tool offsets are the only thing holding me up. Now that there is a tool table with Z and diameter I'm hoping someone with more smarts than me can leverage that into Z and X offsets.

I think everyone is going to have their own must have list. It works now if you reset your tools on every change and can work in radius mode.

[Derek]

Derek you COULD do like in teh old days for tool offsets use G52/92s that was long before tool comp.

You could set up teh M6 to handle that automatically.

(;-) TP

I would have to touch off each time I changed tools though wouldn't I? That is a non starter for me.

[Battwell]

on my biesse conversion i used g52 to offset its 33 different heads.( ie pre measured tooling) i entered their value in a macro- but could just as easily been done from a list of user text fields on screen. (ive used this for tool changer offsets while setting machines up)

[Derek]

on my biesse conversion i used g52 to offset its 33 different heads.( ie pre measured tooling) i entered their value in a macro- but could just as easily been done from a list of user text fields on screen. (ive used this for tool changer offsets while setting machines up)

Interesting. So do you think this would be a workable solution for offsets? Realistically I only have like 11 tools for the lathe that I use most of the time.

[Spuds]

on my biesse conversion i used g52 to offset its 33 different heads.( ie pre measured tooling) i entered their value in a macro- but could just as easily been done from a list of user text fields on screen. (ive used this for tool changer offsets while setting machines up)

Interesting. So do you think this would be a workable solution for offsets? Realistically I only have like 11 tools for the lathe that I use most of the time.

I know this post is a bit old Derek, but are you still around ? and how well did you get along with this ?
Thanks !

[andrej]

G43 Hx where x is tool number in the tool database works just fine in latest version which introduced lathe capabilities. Atleast for manual toolchange on a 4 tool turret. I measured all offsets against first (master) tool and can do multi tool work without any issues. The offsets in both X and Z are taken from the tool table in UCCNC and applied to the work coorddinates.
Just needed to change the postprocessor a bit so that it outputs the Hx part after G43 gcode. I do not use any UCCNC macros at the moment for toolchanges. Just M5 to turn off spindle followed by M1 to pause the gcode and then G43 Hx to set tool offsets. Hit cycle start again to resume work with changed tool. Probably easy to implement in a macro if you have automatic tool changer.