Craftsman 109 mods and linuxcnc

[lelef]

Hello everibody,
I´m Emanuele, I live in France but I`m italian
This is my first post !
My Englis is orrible ,I hope you understand.
Craftman lathes are quite rare in Europe so when I`ve found one at a low price ner my I`ve take it, I like mini lathes!
The lathe was in this conditions with the shaft bent, a problem of the Craftsman 109


and after the firts works


But it wasn`t very easy to use, I`ve tryed to put an ELS


but it was not a good solution
so full cnc with linuxcnc,
Linuxcnc was "my first love" now I use most Mach3(on lathes) and Estlcam for milling
This was the good chache to put again a system with Linuxcnc that has improved a lot from the firs time I`ve used it ,more tha 25 years ago

But the thaft was allwais a problem , vibration and rigidity

And also with linuxcnc a better speed control without the need of the manual speed change shoul be a improvement, shurely for threading it is.
The problem was to solve the problem without spending a lot of money.
I`ve chose a sewing machine brushless motor kit for the spindle and...
I own a Range Rover classic and I`ve a lot of spare parts...











Really better now !

 

[markba633csi]

Fixed the way the factory should have!
Where there is a will there is a way

 

[lelef]

I`ve grinded the adaptor plate for the spindle and it is on the lathe bench at perfect 0 for height and angle,
the lateral alignement is set with 4 screws

other little improvments

this i s a drill atachement, it`made with a 220v motor useded for sewing maghines and for mini drills in the 1960..1970 and a spare chuck for minidrills
It can be mounted in front or on the side of the workpiece
it hasn`t a lot of power and the motor case is in plastic it`s cheap and it works.
As linuxcnc for threading use an encorer is possible to index the spindle so the drill atachement is a good options.
I haven`t done the milling atachement as I have on ather lathes, the structure of the bed is well dane for a so small lathe, but cross slide travel is small and not so strong as the bed.





this is a mod for the carriage copied from the web, the 2 original bloks at the sides of the new bronze one.
it works really better and also the precision and rigidity are better.

I`ve mantained the original leads screw, yes I work in mm but linuxcnc makes the conversion in software

 

[mvagusta]

Nice work! Thanks for sharing it with us. It is an encouragement to see how someone can adapt the things around him to accomplish a goal.