Initial success and questions about EMC and lathes.

[Howard Bailey <bogmstr-at-infomagic.net>]

I have gotten my Sherline lathe to run under EMC (BDI, RTlinux 6.2, etc) and do 
what I tell it to to a fair extent.  I am pleased so far and plan to add a 
driven axis to the cross slide for light duty tapping as well as making some 
quick change tooling blocks to enhance speed and accuracy.  The CNC conversion 
was done with stepper motors without encoders, Sherline motor mounts, and a 
stepper motor driver from Brewingtontech.com.

>From what I have seen so far, EMC seems to be primarily designed for use with 
mills.  I set up the axes so the cross slide is X and the bed is Z, as seems 
standard for lathes.  G18 sets the workplane to X-Z and things work fine.  When 
I try to use a cutter radius compensation, however, I get the message that it 
can't be used in planes other than X-Y.  I can swap axes and do a find and 
replace on my G-code to account for the change easily enough, but will this 
allow me to use radius comp with my lathe?

Does EMC have any provisions for canned roughing and finishing cycles as 
offered on some lathes using G72, G73, and G74?  If so, could someone refresh 
my memory with the syntax of these commands?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Howard Bailey



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