Digital readouts on a manual lathe ? Thoughts Please

[moonlight machine]

Properly center the tool
2 axis is all you want.
running up to the chuck, count down (set your zero at the stop)
pull your power feed short and manually take the last bit.

Might be all you want but i want 3 axis.

 

[trevj]

Might be all you want but i want 3 axis.

So have at. Not gonna tell you how to spend YOUR money, just expressing opinions of the value of having that third axis, from this side...

Digital math isn't expensive to implement, but having a decently small sized encoder, on everything that moves, would probably get out of hand pretty quickly!

 

[trevj]

Drilling out waste material for boring, I don’t like accident crashing a small boring bar into the bottom of a blind hole.

I’ve never drilled much with the carriage w/ a manual lathe. Seems like a lot of effort to get the drill on center (w/o a dro) and square vs plopping in a tailstock drill chuck. I generally set the quill with one of the graduations lined with the housing, bump the drill into the part by sliding the TS, run the carriage up to the TS and lock it. Then I can clear chips by pulling the TS back and just push it forward until it bumps the carriage and not lose track of my depth.

With a dro and the compound replaced with a plinth that pins the toolpost square I would probably drill with the carriage all the time. I don’t have either of those though on any of the lathes I regularly run.

I have used a fair few end mills to clean the taper out of the bottom of drilled holes. Silver soldered or brazed on extensions if required.

Seems to me the real answer is to actually meaasure the hole, to ensure it is the correct depth, BEFORE shooting the boring bar down it, though, no?

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Might be all you want but i want 3 axis.

Lots of the bigger lathes I worked on had a three axis DRO. Cross travel, long travel and compound travel. You could either use the last two separately or link them together to give a combined reading. Very useful. These were fairly big lathes though with long ( 20” ), powered compound slides.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[trevj]

Lots of the bigger lathes I worked on had a three axis DRO. Cross travel, long travel and compound travel. You could either use the last two separately or link them together to give a combined reading. Very useful. These were fairly big lathes though with long ( 20” ), powered compound slides.

Regards Tyrone.

Tyrone, you have provided me with the answer! Yeah, I can, in that situation, see a use for having a DRO on the compound, for sure.
Never having run a lathe that had an operator's seat on the Carriage, that was a scenario beyond my experience.

Though, thinking on that, a fella might well want multiple dro's! A Two axis for the ways and each carriage, a two axis on the tailstock, combined, to show both where the tailstock is, and the extension of the quill, and a separate or combined one on the cross slide, along with programming to account for the angle of feed.

Pretty far beyond the needs of guys with lathes that do not have a dedicated crane over each of them for loading and unloading the work, though.

No accounting for what a fella WANTS, though!

 

[richard newman]

For most drilling on the lathe I use the tailstock quill, but I do have a few jobs where I prefer to use a 5C collet holder block that fits my CA Aloris/Dorian type toolpost, rather than a drill chuck on an arbor in the tailstock. Assuming the toolpost is square to the centerline (which is were I normally leave it) and the height adjustment on the block is OK (which it usually is), then getting a drill on center is just a matter of dialing it in on X (which is pretty quick).

How do you check cross slide position to get the collet on center with the spindle?

 

[eKretz]

How do you check cross slide position to get the collet on center with the spindle?

Probably a quick sweep with an indicator.

 

[Nmbmxer]

How do you check cross slide position to get the collet on center with the spindle?

I would set the flutes horizontal and touch them off the od of the part. Part OD + Drill diameter = current x position, then you can dial it into the centerline. Basically how you touch of a cnc without a presetter, at least that’s how I always did it on the Mazak I had.

If I am in a hurry I crank the top slide in until a center in the tailstock seats evenly in the back of the collet, which is pretty easy and good enough for a normal drill.

 

[sfriedberg]

How do you check cross slide position to get the collet on center with the spindle?

99 times out of 100, by initial pecking and looking at how the drill deflects and how the drill tip fits into the cone it's cutting. Same basic eyeball techniques I use to line a drill up with a center punch pop on the drill press, but without the center punch pop. Helps that I only have 1 axis on the lathe cross slide, rather than 2 on the drill press table. It's a drill. If I need better concentricity, I am going to follow up with a boring bar.
If I have multiples to do, I note the position on the DRO.