Atlas 7b tweeks

frugalguido said:

The Cincinnati was made in the late 50's and they made two as far as I know, One was shown at a machine trade show, probably to see how much interest there was. They did obtain a patent on it. Just to give you a idea how big it was, 13.5 feet long and weighed 14300 lbs, some metal there!

On the atlas, the first thing that I would personally automate is the cross slide, before the downfeed. But, if you did the downfeed and wanted to keep it simple, I would use ratchet wheel and a solenoid on the down slide. Mount a micro switch on the back of the machine so that very time the ram is at the back most position it would fire the solenoid and increment the racket down a tooth or more.

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While an interesting exercise, the sheer size and weight of the machine would not appeal to any except the heaviest industry IMHO. I have never been ruled by need for speed in my work or play. My experience is there is a diminishing return on quality at the expense of speed. And trying to compete with a repeating single stroke machine against a rotary lathe or mill is a tall order if your intent is speed.

But for me the shaper offers a unique package of small size, unique flexibility and cheap tooling. It turns out in its antiquated way the best finish of my machine tools but takes more thought, planning and skill for me to run it properly. I could probably learn to hand feed like Rudy K. did. But since I plan on replacing the silly little dials on the down and cross feed anyway, why not go the extra mile?

I'm curious why you would change the cross feed as it already does an ok job as is?

About the only electronics I'm contemplating is DRO's on the down and cross feeds. You obviously have the skills to do whatever you want in that dept.