A few years ago I bought a Proxxon micro mill and added cnc. It took me hours of endless learning. Finally I was ready. Test run, all went well. Decided to try a piece of aluminium and a small hss end mill. Fingers firmly crossed. OUCH The end mill drew itself out of the collet and drilled itself into the aluminium and into the Proxxon vice. It shock me for six. I felt out of control. Many years later, it stands unused gathering dust. I so admire anyone who successfully tames either a mill or a lathe to run it via cnc. Well done on this initial trial. 👏👏👍😀
Hi Andrew. I think that's the key point - once you hit that go button, you are completely out of control. You have to hope that what you told it was right, that you tightened everything, twice, and that the gods are smiling. I was smiled upon that day! 🤣
Wish I could put more than 1 thumbs up Olly 👍👍👍👍👍. For someone who understands the complexities of CNC but has no idea on electronics at all, this is the equivalent of scaling Everest. Well done 👍👍👍👍
Thanks Jon. All the groundwork was done on the little CNC lathe that I made a few months ago. I just ran the same program after adjusting the settings so it was moving appropriately. I've still got loads to do, currently I have to zero the tool every time, so I need to sort out offsets, and some kind of tool turret. I don't think I'll ever be bored.
excellent eletronic wizardry Olly, to me anyway!! A gerbil is a rodent in my books!!! I need to get my head around some of this technology, it's hard when your set in your old school ways. see you next time👍👍👍👍👍👍 atb Kev
Hi Kev, I'm still trying to get my head round it - all the groundwork for this was done on the little lathe i built a few months ago so i could try this stuff out and not damage anything! It's quite scary when you set a machine going, knowing that it has absolutely no idea what it's doing, and has no feedback to know if its going to get into trouble!
WOW What it must be to know what you are doing with that stuff. I would love to have a go. I like how the birds nest of wires grew from & I quote" I just need 3 wires".
I really liked todays video. I was cool to see you repurpose the board from the sainsmart cnc and add the drivers to it. It was a nail bitter to see that go so close to the chuck. I thought man you got nerves of steal there. Yes, that was a little exciting indeed.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Although I tested the toolpath with the rubber tool, the tip was somewhat closer. It was only at that point that I realised I had no Estop! Eek! That'll be the next job!
Mornin' Olly, That was an absolute treat! Really well explained from start to finish. Very brave man driving right up to the chuck on the the first go 😮😮 (I'm sure you tested offline though!!) I had a chuckle seeing you ident the wires thinking back to the mindless tasks of preparing wiring lists when I was in the drawing office too many years ago, all the colours had an abbreviation which I still use to this day!! Look forward to seeing more of this lathe as you move on. Cracking video, well done!!
Hi David, driving up to the chuck was obviously completely planned! I did test it, but forgot to zero the real tool before starting the program. I need to find out how to do tool offsets, then I won't need to worry about zeroing tools.
I was originally planning on a much smaller CNC lathe, but this one presented itself to me on eBay, and the rest is history, but also largely the future...
GRBL is most cheapest CNC DIY solution available, but it must be very reliable, robust like industrial solution for problem-free operations. So, you need to be sure about interference, EMI, USB stable connection etc...
I have something similar done for my Warco WM180 lathe. But the controller is limited. Im thinking of getting a a bigger WM250 and doing a proper CNC conversion to that including the ball screws etc. But being able to run proper GRBL generated from fusion looks awesome. Especially for things like threading. No need to muck about with change gears etc
I've yet to try threading. There are a few ways to tackle it, but the simplest (in my opinion) way to tackle it is to use a stepper motor (or servo) to drive the spindle, this can be done without any special software. I have seen an "encoder on the spindle" solution (a bit like an ELS), but that requires more work as the GRBL boards don't have encoder inputs.
I have the Nano ELS H4 and that can do threading via the controller but no support via gcode yet. I think how it works is it adjusts the feed rate to match the speed measured at the encoder rather than trying to keep both in sync. It works really well so far but its a bit manual having to set up the thread without gcode.@@ollysworkshop
Howdy! I have a literally identical concept of a CNC lathe (mine's built on a Jet 1220 wood lathe with hiwin type rails, but the electronics are the same and I also use Fusion) and I am having a bit of an issue. GRBL does not store tool length offsets. So as you go from one tool to another, you're expected to zero the tool as you go. If you have a part that needs several tools for example (right hand, left hand, parting, boring) you're sorta stuck. I am faking tool length offsets by assigning different WCS for each tool. I can use 6 WCS in GRBL, so I am limited to 6 tools. Do you have a plan that would allow the use of more tools with pre measured offsets? Thanks in advance!
Hi, the lack of GRBL tool offsets is a known limitation, and I've yet to do anything about it. I think the way you are doing it with WCS is the only way without doing anything clever. If you can write code, then it should be possible to run a script on your gcode to pick up the different tool numbers and directly apply the appropriate offsets to the x-z coordinates in the gcode. The other option, that I have been considering, is buying a mach3/4 compatible controller!
Yes, the grbl controller was very easy to get going. I'm wanting a more advanced system though (e.g. mach3, linuxCNC), but don't really know how to choose. I'm currently using Universal GCode Sender.
@@ollysworkshop I have been looking at linuxcnc. It is quite capable. Mach 3 seems antique, and also running anything like this on windows is not a great idea.
![My first part on my grbl CNC lathe [A23-20]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/L-tN0jqHQ0M/mqdefault.jpg)
![My first part on my grbl CNC lathe [A23-20]](/img/tr.png)
A few years ago I bought a Proxxon micro mill and added cnc. It took me hours of endless learning. Finally I was ready. Test run, all went well. Decided to try a piece of aluminium and a small hss end mill. Fingers firmly crossed. OUCH The end mill drew itself out of the collet and drilled itself into the aluminium and into the Proxxon vice. It shock me for six. I felt out of control.
Many years later, it stands unused gathering dust.
I so admire anyone who successfully tames either a mill or a lathe to run it via cnc.
Well done on this initial trial. 👏👏👍😀
Hi Andrew. I think that's the key point - once you hit that go button, you are completely out of control. You have to hope that what you told it was right, that you tightened everything, twice, and that the gods are smiling. I was smiled upon that day! 🤣
Wish I could put more than 1 thumbs up Olly 👍👍👍👍👍. For someone who understands the complexities of CNC but has no idea on electronics at all, this is the equivalent of scaling Everest. Well done 👍👍👍👍
Thanks Jon. All the groundwork was done on the little CNC lathe that I made a few months ago. I just ran the same program after adjusting the settings so it was moving appropriately. I've still got loads to do, currently I have to zero the tool every time, so I need to sort out offsets, and some kind of tool turret. I don't think I'll ever be bored.
me too Jon
A gerbil is a rodent in my book!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
excellent eletronic wizardry Olly, to me anyway!!
A gerbil is a rodent in my books!!! I need to get my head around some of this technology, it's hard when your set in your old school ways.
see you next time👍👍👍👍👍👍
atb
Kev
Hi Kev, I'm still trying to get my head round it - all the groundwork for this was done on the little lathe i built a few months ago so i could try this stuff out and not damage anything! It's quite scary when you set a machine going, knowing that it has absolutely no idea what it's doing, and has no feedback to know if its going to get into trouble!
I'm a bit lost in CNC things. Maybe I should start to learn some day, when I'm grown up...
If it interests you, go for it! I don't really have a reason to do it other than I want to. Growing up is overrated
Don't grow up! It's a trap!!!
Great stuff. This could be the start of a long running Red Lathe series....
Probably never ending...
Great start to this project. Looking forward to further episodes. 👏
Thanks. There's definitely more to come.
Gday Olly, im fascinated with how you make this stuff work, brilliant job and keen to see this more, cheers
Thanks Matty, there's more to come!
WOW
What it must be to know what you are doing with that stuff.
I would love to have a go.
I like how the birds nest of wires grew from & I quote" I just need 3 wires".
Thanks Steve. I need to tidy that birds nest up before i do too much more!
I really liked todays video. I was cool to see you repurpose the board from the sainsmart cnc and add the drivers to it. It was a nail bitter to see that go so close to the chuck. I thought man you got nerves of steal there. Yes, that was a little exciting indeed.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Although I tested the toolpath with the rubber tool, the tip was somewhat closer. It was only at that point that I realised I had no Estop! Eek! That'll be the next job!
Mornin' Olly, That was an absolute treat! Really well explained from start to finish.
Very brave man driving right up to the chuck on the the first go 😮😮 (I'm sure you tested offline though!!)
I had a chuckle seeing you ident the wires thinking back to the mindless tasks of preparing wiring lists when I was in the drawing office too many years ago, all the colours had an abbreviation which I still use to this day!!
Look forward to seeing more of this lathe as you move on.
Cracking video, well done!!
Hi David, driving up to the chuck was obviously completely planned! I did test it, but forgot to zero the real tool before starting the program. I need to find out how to do tool offsets, then I won't need to worry about zeroing tools.
Interesting stuff. A lot of experimenting ahead with feeds, speeds, rpm's. Well done
A lot of learning to do there, that's for sure!
Fantastic!! I’m excited to see this run!
There's a small job coming up 😁
Very cool! For some reason cnc mills don't excite me but the idea of a cnc lathe I think is cool.
Same here. I have no use for a CNC lathe, but they do fascinate me. A CNC mill is probably more use, so I've got one of those to bring to life too.
Hello Olly,
Really interesting video... I have a friend who has added CNC functionality to one of the small Unimat SL lathes...
Take care.
Paul,,
I was originally planning on a much smaller CNC lathe, but this one presented itself to me on eBay, and the rest is history, but also largely the future...
GRBL is most cheapest CNC DIY solution available, but it must be very reliable, robust like industrial solution for problem-free operations. So, you need to be sure about interference, EMI, USB stable connection etc...
Thanks for your comment. I agree that it needs to be stable, and I know all about EMC, but so far it's given me no trouble in that regard.
I have something similar done for my Warco WM180 lathe. But the controller is limited. Im thinking of getting a a bigger WM250 and doing a proper CNC conversion to that including the ball screws etc. But being able to run proper GRBL generated from fusion looks awesome. Especially for things like threading. No need to muck about with change gears etc
I've yet to try threading. There are a few ways to tackle it, but the simplest (in my opinion) way to tackle it is to use a stepper motor (or servo) to drive the spindle, this can be done without any special software. I have seen an "encoder on the spindle" solution (a bit like an ELS), but that requires more work as the GRBL boards don't have encoder inputs.
I have the Nano ELS H4 and that can do threading via the controller but no support via gcode yet.
I think how it works is it adjusts the feed rate to match the speed measured at the encoder rather than trying to keep both in sync. It works really well so far but its a bit manual having to set up the thread without gcode.@@ollysworkshop
This is very cool
cool, but also a bit scary!
Howdy! I have a literally identical concept of a CNC lathe (mine's built on a Jet 1220 wood lathe with hiwin type rails, but the electronics are the same and I also use Fusion) and I am having a bit of an issue. GRBL does not store tool length offsets. So as you go from one tool to another, you're expected to zero the tool as you go. If you have a part that needs several tools for example (right hand, left hand, parting, boring) you're sorta stuck. I am faking tool length offsets by assigning different WCS for each tool. I can use 6 WCS in GRBL, so I am limited to 6 tools. Do you have a plan that would allow the use of more tools with pre measured offsets? Thanks in advance!
Hi, the lack of GRBL tool offsets is a known limitation, and I've yet to do anything about it. I think the way you are doing it with WCS is the only way without doing anything clever. If you can write code, then it should be possible to run a script on your gcode to pick up the different tool numbers and directly apply the appropriate offsets to the x-z coordinates in the gcode. The other option, that I have been considering, is buying a mach3/4 compatible controller!
I liked that 😊😊😊😊😊
Thanks Neil.
Those GRBL controllers are awesome for entry level CNC! What did you use on the pc to control the lathe?
Yes, the grbl controller was very easy to get going. I'm wanting a more advanced system though (e.g. mach3, linuxCNC), but don't really know how to choose.
I'm currently using Universal GCode Sender.
@@ollysworkshop I have been looking at linuxcnc. It is quite capable. Mach 3 seems antique, and also running anything like this on windows is not a great idea.