GH1440 Lathe Bed Conversion

[Valfar]

Thank you for the reply m_c. Good points.

My thoughts were to use 2 separate motors, and couple them both to the spindle: one geared up and the other geared down. But only one would be powered on and running at a given time. At the same given time, the other one would still be rotating, but driven by the spindle (as it won't be powered) - the spindle would rotate due to the other one.

I would create a lathe profile (in Mach3 for instance) and run the machinery in lathe mode, with the high RPM / low torque servo power on (and the other servo off).

When milling is needed, I would shut down everything, create another profile (mill profile) and run the machinery in milling mode only, but this time with the low RPM / high torque servo powered on (and the lathe spindle servo off, which would still be rotating due to the other motor), configured for the 4th axis role.

The lathe and mill would share the X and Y axis steppers.

I hope it makes sense.

Do you think I'm going on the right track, or talking bananas?