a sill thought called Plan B

[curiousMike]

My machining hobby is getting addictive. I have a PM 25V bench mill with the acorn system. As a Mach 4 refugee I do it love so. My mind has now turned to the possibility of buying a manual bench lathe which I call Plan A. A reoccurring thought keep popping up as what functionality the lathe would add over the current mill with its manual rotary table. The biggest thing I can come up is that the lathe can turning down or contour long round stock that need support at both ends. I am toying with a plan B which is to build a high speed 4 axis with tail stock
In my plan B the fourth axis would need a rotation speed comparable to a Lathe. The Clear Path servos have speeds in of 2K and up. It could use a ball end mill at the 3 or 6 o’clock position to turn down diameter or contour where a radius is required. Slots could be cut with a flat end mill moving in the Y direction. Intercon could do it all except…. to set and hold rotation speed while other G codes are being execution. Don’t know how to do that
My guess is just about everybody in this the business has thought about this Plan B and discarded it. I would love to hear why… be kind please.

[swissi]

Check out this video from This Old Tony (TOT). It might give you some ideas:



Also check out the work from Cliff from Down Under. He's famous for his solution to design a gang tooling for his mill head to use his rotary axis as a lathe with tool changer:



-swissi