CNC lathe - Need Assistance

[jthompson1995]

I found an ad on Craigslist for this Light Machines CNC lathe for $200 obo. I'm not familiar with CNC machinery, but it seems like a pretty good deal and would allow me to expand my craft quite a bit.

I don't know the model number, but it looks like an older model. It also does not look like it comes with a computer or software drivers for it. Without the control software, it may take some time to get it up and running.

Does anyone have any experience with this or something similar? I'd like to get some more info before I spend the money on something that I'll just stub my toes on.

Also, do you think $200 is a fair price? If not, what do you think it is worth?

Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[low_48]

These are basically Sherline lathes. You will spend easily another $500 for a controller, probably more. That controller will take signals from you PC and send them to the stepper motors. I pretty sure that white box in the photo is just for safety and noise. There is no controller in it. Mach 3 seems to be the software of choice, that will be another $150. It looks like a new Sherline model 4400 cnc lathe goes for about $855 for what is shown it the picture. http://www.sherline.com/4400pg.htm
Also remember that any cutters for this type of machine will never give the same surface quality as a hand held skew. It will also not get a pen turned as quickly as you can by hand, feed speeds are much slower than your hands on machines this size. Now if you spend another $600 or so, you can get another stepper motor on the spindle, then you can turn threads, spirals, etc... down the pen.[] On the plus side you will be able to turn very accurate bushings, in large quanities.

 

[jthompson1995]

Thanks for the info. I was actually thinking of using it for turning custom metal components for custom pens as well as custom bushings, but with the added expense I think I'll have to pass at this point.

 

[Mudder]

You can DIY a controller a little cheaper and there are always some on Ebay.

I will say that Mach 3 is a fantastic program and it will allow you to use it free as long as your programs do not exceed 1000 lines of code. it can be downloaded here: http://www.machsupport.com/

There is also another controller software that is a little bit cheaper called Kcam. You can find it here: http://www.kellyware.com/



BTW: Damn good deal for 2 bills!

 

[Paul in OKC]

Originally posted by Mudder
<br />You can DIY a controller a little cheaper and there are always some on Ebay.

I will say that Mach 3 is a fantastic program and it will allow you to use it free as long as your programs do not exceed 1000 lines of code. it can be downloaded here: http://www.machsupport.com/

There is also another controller software that is a little bit cheaper called Kcam. You can find it here: http://www.kellyware.com/


BTW: Damn good deal for 2 bills!

My thought as well, Mudder, both on the mach stuff and the good deal! Wish I was closer!

 

[bgray]

The price seems great to me.

Even if all of it is scrap, the housing itself is worth more than that new.

If the lathe is functional, than it's a bonus for that price.

 

[bitshird]

The Lathe looks like a 4000, you can get a two axis driver from
http://www.probotix.com/ quite reasonably and As everyone has said you got a great deal. I believe it has Servomotors instead of steppers, servos are better but harder to set up with out the right drive, Geckos will work, but the Probotix setup is much cheaper with new steppers
Mach3 is probably the best control on the market for under 5,000.00 It’s far better than the Sherline EMC any computer with over a 1 GHZ processor will work, you do need Win 2000 XP or Vista
Ken