I was thinking how I still need my manual lathe because I can do some work that is difficult to do on my CNC machine. I thought about making a "pendant" that might be laid out similar to a manual lathe's carriage apron. The idea is to make the CNC lathe run like a manual lathe with DRO for one-offs or whatever you need a manual lathe for. The "pendant" would have encoded handwheels for longitudal, cross, and compound travel. The PC screen would let the operator select feed rates or thread per inch / mm per thread. You would also set the compound angle with the PC screen. The carriage "pendant" would have a selector for feed on Z, X, or compound. There would be a switch to engage/dis-engage feeds, and a lever to engage the electronic half nuts. Bottom line is that you could use your cnc lathe as a manual lathe, I think more people would be willing to convert their machines to EMC2 CNC if they didn't have to give up their manual machine to do so. Also some that are scared of CNC would like it if they could walk up to a machine and operate it like a manual machine they are used to. I think most of, if not all, this functionality is already in EMC2 hal and user interfaces.
Worthwhile? or maybe I just need some more sleep! Thanks RogerN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
