Hi Jon,
I have ordered a Yunson Head and tail stock from Aliexpress, reasonable price but expensive freight! I am planning to basically copy your design but using a Raspberry Pi and Protoneer hat with bCNC to control it. I mainly want to make chair legs with a barley twist. I notice in your photos and description you show the lathe mounted on a 40x40 beam, but this is not in the SketchUp model. Is the beam required or is it optional?
My take on the Build List is:

1. Z axis bundle (250mm)
2. X axis bundle (1000mm)
3. 1500mm C beam to mount the lathe
4. 250mm C beam (6 pieces)
5. A heap of cast corners and "T" nuts (maybe 34?)

 

To answer my own question the 40x40 beam is there for a couple of reasons:

1. There is a corresponding groove in the base of the Yunson Head and Tail stock which makes them much easier to align.
2. If the jaws of the chuck are fully extended, they will hit the C-Beam! I currently have mine sitting on a 40x40mm piece of hardwood. I will replace them with a beam when I finalise my design.

Hope this helps others attempting a Rotary design.

 

Jon,

Can you provide me the build list for your CNC lathe?

Thanks

Jerry

 

Dave,

Are you happy with your rotary build?

I would like to build one similar, can’t find anyone who has build one for an existing lathe!

Thanks

Jerry

 

Am I missing something? I see discussion about a sketchup file, but i see no files shared here. How would i go about getting a copy of the build files? I'm very interested in building a rotary carving machine and there aren't many here.

 

on the build page the builder (Jon Norris) referred to "gwandad" and "dougsnash" as similar builds. Found this on "dougnash"s build:

https://openbuilds.com/attachments/rotaryox-3d-model-skp.5803/

don't know if this is what you're looking for or not ?

 

Thanks Guys!

 

I've been playing around with converting a C-Beam XL with a 4th Axis and my question is concerning aligning your Z-Axis during cutting. First off are you setting up your Zero on the Cylinder Surface or on its Axis and are you centering your bit directly over the centerline of the cylinder or are you cutting to one side or the other and Side Milling your pieces? I hope to get mine figured out and configured pretty soon. Lately I've been having second thoughts about mounting the A-Axis onto the Side Rails of my machine or whether it is advisable to mount it onto the Wastboard.
This is the dilemma that I am facing at the moment.
You've basically worked out what works best if you are already producing work as to what might just work better.
I'm using a Gecko G540 and Mach3 with a UCCNC Parallel to USB Connector to control my setup.