Sunday, January 10, 2021

Pretending the mill is a lathe

 A quick experiment in doing some turning on the mill.  The mill is in "TCP" mode, so I can jog it in work coordinate system rather than machine coordinate system, and turn a taper by jogging in the WCS Z axis.  Material is 17-4 PH stainless, 5000 RPM, .3mm DOC.


This clip shows how the mill is moving in both the Z and Y axis to make an 8 degree taper (indicating against an ER collet), but I only have to jog in Z on the pendant:

2 comments:

  1. Slick. Been too nervous to try this on my 770M. Was it just manual gcode + pendant, or did you get a CAM software to somehow do the pathing?

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    1. This was just using the pendant. For simple turning, I think it would be straightforward to write by hand, or trick HSMworks by doing drilling operations at different points. I could imagine holding a "gang" of tools on a block on the mill table. Not sure how profiling would work though.

      Maybe it's possible to get real lathe cam working? I probably won't need to to any fancy parts like this though.

      My immediate plan with this is to finish machine some shrink fit tool extensions so they run true with the spindle.

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