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I have seen a couple of cases of people mounting a powered chuck in their X plane. (In one case even a complete mini lathe.) Then turning with either locked quill static tools or rotary cutting tools. I would quite like to try this. If there is any guidance on the subject available. Especially using standard Mach3 programming. Presumably just X & Z. I would be most obliged for assistance.
The best DIY or in other words "pro but on the cheap" implementation i have seen is the now called INTURN
You could search the cnczone for the build thread as it started there and see how it progressed. Now i see he has some dedicated electronics , see diagram bellow.
Best would be to contact Steve directly.
http://www.mycncuk.com/attachment.ph...id=15663&stc=1
Thanks silyavski - I had not envisaged at this time adding a 4th Axis rotary encoder .
Just a rotation device. Which is simple enough. So I guess my inquiry is a software question.
If you want to use a mill with a lathe spindle mounted in X, using Mill X as Lathe Z and Mill Z as Lathe X then there's nothing special to do apart from fixing a tool to the mill head and configuring your axes in Mach3 and correctly defining your machine in any CAM package you use.
magicniner - Yes suddenly dawned on me to just flip the axies. Seems to work OK. Just have to finish the rotary bit.
If you only need to machine small parts, then you can do it like I (and many others) did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wGDMSiZpyg