slow-poke
Ultra Member
I'm really getting ahead of myself, my lathe is to arrive tomorrow but I like to ponder and would like to hear thoughts on my pondering. Obviously I will run it as it is for a while to evaluate.
I enjoy tweaking my machines to improve them. DRO and 3-P motor with VFD almost for sure.
Now the pondering part.......
I'm thinking that I might want to do the same mods that I did to my existing BB CX706 10x22:
1) The gearbox on my CX706 is fairly noisy it's now silent because I removed it. No need as I have an ELS.
No more noise, no more drips, zero downside.
2) I replaced the lead-screws with ballscrews to all but eliminate the backlash. This is more of a nice to have because backlash is not all that important most of the time with a lathe.
3) I added Servos to drive the Z and X ballscrews, This does more than simply allowing things like threading to be fully automated it also allows you to eliminate the need for the compound (it's just a bit of arithmetic) to emulate the compound at any angle. This was a big deal on my CX706 because the compound is a major contributor to the lack of rigidity on a small machine, it just cuts and finishes so much nicer now. It now cuts as if it gained 300lbs.
4) I added nice MPG controls graduated in 0.001" increments for when I want to use the lathe in manual mode and a switch to flip to 0.0001" for close tolerance cuts.
The gear box on my CX706 has no effect on spindle speed, all those gears are simply to control the leadscrew. I don't think that's the case with the Utilathe, so I might need to maintain the spindle drive gears but possibly not if I up the motor HP and use the VFD to compensate.
Lots to ponder. I would like to hear thoughts from the brain trust.
I enjoy tweaking my machines to improve them. DRO and 3-P motor with VFD almost for sure.
Now the pondering part.......
I'm thinking that I might want to do the same mods that I did to my existing BB CX706 10x22:
1) The gearbox on my CX706 is fairly noisy it's now silent because I removed it. No need as I have an ELS.
No more noise, no more drips, zero downside.
2) I replaced the lead-screws with ballscrews to all but eliminate the backlash. This is more of a nice to have because backlash is not all that important most of the time with a lathe.
3) I added Servos to drive the Z and X ballscrews, This does more than simply allowing things like threading to be fully automated it also allows you to eliminate the need for the compound (it's just a bit of arithmetic) to emulate the compound at any angle. This was a big deal on my CX706 because the compound is a major contributor to the lack of rigidity on a small machine, it just cuts and finishes so much nicer now. It now cuts as if it gained 300lbs.
4) I added nice MPG controls graduated in 0.001" increments for when I want to use the lathe in manual mode and a switch to flip to 0.0001" for close tolerance cuts.
The gear box on my CX706 has no effect on spindle speed, all those gears are simply to control the leadscrew. I don't think that's the case with the Utilathe, so I might need to maintain the spindle drive gears but possibly not if I up the motor HP and use the VFD to compensate.
Lots to ponder. I would like to hear thoughts from the brain trust.
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