Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

What does a mill / lathe do

Collapse

Zenm Tech Pte Ltd

Collapse

Visit Zenmtech at rc.zenmtech.com

X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    What does a mill / lathe do

    For the uninitiated in mechanical engineering, what does the mill perform or do? What does the lathe perform or do?

    In short, what kind of products, or shapes of objects that can be manufactured if one uses only a lathe or a mill?

    I just saw the price list and it it seems to be affordable for the hobbyist.

    What is the power system for these machines? Are they fixed voltage, fixed phase or fixed cycle machines?

    #2
    I m in the mechanical line. In fact i m a mechanical designer. I try to answer your question with all knowledge i have.

    Milling: Conventional milling cut planer surface. Planer surface means flat surface. There are special cutter which can cut radii corner or forms slots. Holes drilling also possible. However, 3d surface needs cadcam software to generated NC code which to be passed on to CNC machine to drive the machine axis and the cutter movement. The result is some irrigular shapes that are not able to achive by normal conventional milling

    Turning: Conventinal turning can only deal with cylindrical shape, cone, thread and simple and low accuracy spherical shape. Drilling also possible but must be at the same axis of the cylinder. However CNC turning can do more depends on how many axis it has. Simple cnc can deal with all cylindrical and spheral shape. Combination of both is also possible with high precision results.

    These are normal things the machine can do. There are high tech machine with 4 or more axis which can do both turning and milling together. These machines however cannot make a square hole. Square hole has to use special machine to do Like EDM and wirecut.


    Hope these helps.

    Comment


      #3
      And power wise..... its use 400v to drive the motor.
      Conventional milling has 1 motor or more. The cutter is driven by the main motor while some machine has auto axis which is driven by smaller motors.

      CNC milling has more motor. Normally one motor is require by one axis. Same goes to CNC turning.

      BTW CNC machine can archive much higher than conventional way. Well much more costly too....

      Comment


        #4
        Re: What does a mill / lathe do

        Originally posted by FDC
        For the uninitiated in mechanical engineering, what does the mill perform or do? What does the lathe perform or do?

        In short, what kind of products, or shapes of objects that can be manufactured if one uses only a lathe or a mill?

        I just saw the price list and it it seems to be affordable for the hobbyist.

        What is the power system for these machines? Are they fixed voltage, fixed phase or fixed cycle machines?
        Thanks Federick for the detail explanation

        Hi FDC, on general, lathe is used to produce stuff related to round parts eg rod, shaft, bushing.

        As for mill, they are use to "cut" parts that are probably sqaure, rectangle in shape. You may include some arc by use of a rotary table. Angle can be included in a part w an angle vise

        In most cases, u will need both mill and lathe

        Coming to electrical specification, they are operating on 240Vac. The motor is AC motor w viarable speed control

        Cheers

        Mike

        I reference some hopup from helihobby


        This need mill and lathe



        This one lathe only


        This one mill only

        Comment

        Working...
        X