Using a mill as a lathe.

[tyler_machine]

Has anyone tried to machine a profile using a mill as a lathe?
loading the part into the mill spindle.

[rklopp]

Yes, I have. I have a Deckel FP2NC with both horizontal and vertical spindles. I have used the horizontal spindle as a poor-man's sliding headstock lathe. I hold the work in an ER-16 collet toolholder. I clamp a lathe compound from a swiss instrument lathe to the table on some 1-2-3 & 2-4-6 blocks. The hardest part is wrapping my head around the coordinate system, which is mirrored from milling because the tool is on the table and the work is in the spindle, rather than the other way around. I have not attempted to use CAM with this setup; I just finger-CAM it.

I can see doing the same thing on practically any CNC mill.

[CGPM]

Yep, many times.  I generally manually program it. When I have too complex of a contour I cam it in X and Y then manually change the Y coordinates to Z.  If you don't have a cnc lathe this can be a life saver.

[tyler_machine]

I've done it myself many times. Even been able to use Mastercam to output good code. But I'm wanting to setup Fusion 360 to do it, hopefully without any manual changes.

[prefetch]

just wanted to resurrect this thread.  any updates?

i'm very interested in using my haas mill as a lathe.  i've got a 3" cat 40 chuck for it, and i'm trying to figure out if there is a relatively simple way to trick fusion CAM into outputting code that will allow me to do simple lathe operations - but it'd be great to get some hints as to how to go about doing this.

[owilliams3]

Have done it with an R8 three jaw chuck it requires a  modified Post processor; I used a Tormach slant pro lathe post processor; for no other reason than I used a Tormach PCNC 1100.

A) the post processor needs to be edited so that it provides radius output not diameter; it also requires that the post processor be edited to prevent several lathe specific G codes from being output ( you could manually edit these out of the G code as well)

B) the model orientation and physical set up require thinking upside down and backwards as the Mill Z and X coordinates are different

C) set up the reference and part zero very thoughtfully and carefully-air cut the bejezuz  out of the code before actually running it.

D) in the attached image think of the view as being from the  Mill turret outwards; the cutter used in the program was left handed but in actuality what I used was right-handed held in a vise out of view on the right side of the image (the left side from the operators viewpoint)

E) front side and back side constraints are also sort of backwards

Regards

Owen

[goss_alex]

I too am trying to turn parts on my PCNC 1100, but am having trouble getting Fusion to post-process in radius.

Any tips with those post-processor settings?

Alex

[owilliams3]

okay fwiw try this - ymmv

proceed at own risk

compare to present slant pro

air cut lots before real work

I am pretty sure this is the modified version

Good luck

Owen

[Anonymous]

Thank you owilliams3 for sharing your post. Fusion not posting in radius was driving me nuts. I use mach3 and have edited the post to ease editing and removed all the stuff mach doesn't recognize in mill mode. 

 I use a tooling block for mounting the tools. the post also adds a G52 at the beginning and aG52 X0 Y0 Z0 at the end. In the tool comment I add the G52 X Y Z, so it is a simple copy and paste.

[PantechniconDesign]

Hey thanks for sharing this, it works super well! Time to fill up my ATC with parts and my vises with tools!

Best,

Jacob

[SGoldthwaite]

I just did my first mill-turning project. I only had one tool, so it was easy to just hold the tool in a vise. I like the modular setup you've got.

[diantomov]

How to edit the code to retract me Z azis as first and than X after Z?