VCarve pro 11 for tapering

kgoods said:
Don't know if these will help or not but this is my setup.
Picture 1. I was manually swapping these two headstocks on to the lathe rail depending on if I was tapering or doing inlays, billets, etc.

Picture 2. This shows how I mounted the lathe rail and how I do my tapers.
View attachment 643592

Picture 3. This shows the step generator... works real well.
View attachment 643594

Picture 4. This shows the switches, one supplies power to the step generator, the other switches between control via CNC controller (full 4th axis CNC control) or step generator (spinner only). It's actually a three position switch, both off in the center.
View attachment 643593

I know these pictures don't tell the whole story so if you have any questions or if you decide to go this direction and need any help don't hesitate to ask. Good luck however you decide to proceed!
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Thank you brother.

So you installed another motor to power the stepper to spin at greater speed? Also I'm extremely clueless about some mechanic and electric so please forgive me if I ask dumb questions.


The stepper generator speeds up the stepper with another motor?

Thank again sir
 
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icbm said:
Thank you brother.

So you installed another motor to power the stepper or is it Also I'm extremely clueless about some mechanic and electric so please forgive me if I ask dumb questions.

Spinner; motor for headstock or router bit?
The stepper generator speeds up the stepper with another motor?

Thank again sir
Click to expand...
Not quite, what I'm doing is using that same 4th axis stepper that you see attached to the lathe rail for both spinning (cutting tapers) and regular CNC control (doing inlays, ring billets, etc.). I'm doing that by either sending step pulses from that little step generator or sending the signals directly from the existing control card to the stepper driver for the 4th axis. I do that using the switch shown to switch between the two.

The whole reason for doing this is so I don't have to swap the motors/headstocks anymore. That regular taig style headstock you see in the pictures is just for reference and is the one I used to swap out with the stepper headstock that is mounted to the lathe rail in the pictures. This way all I have to do is to flip the switch when I want to run it as a spinner (like a regular lathe) or flip the switch the other way to run it as a full CNC controlled 4th axis. Hope I'm explaining that right. I'll try to do little video over the long weekend showing how it works. Probably easier than trying to explain it in words.

It was a very easy and cheap mod and probably saves me an hour every time I want to switch from inlays to tapering. It used to take a while to dial everything back in when swapping the headstocks.
 
Just thought of something to simplify.... in essence, all the step generator does is turn the stepper motor into a regular motor that just spins like a lathe. The speed can be controlled by the rotating knob on the front of the step generator. All it does is send a continuous stream of pulses to the stepper driver and from there to the stepper motor.

You could do the same thing many ways, but this was the easiest route I found. Took me about a half hour to throw it together once I had the parts.
 
Mike Rys said:
To be clear, when I referred to CueCut as a 'one trick pony', I meant it as a complement. It is an application specific solution focused on one primary purpose, cutting stock from simple dowels to compound tapers with a very well thought out, easy to use interface that is targeted specifically to the cue maker. Rereading my own remark sounded snarky and it was not intended to be.
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Yeah, you know I was offended and actually was looking up old emails to find your pho... yeah I'm 100% kidding. I took it the way you meant it. It's a very specialized GCode generator. If you compare it to Cad/Cam software it is a one trick pony.
 
kgoods said:
Just thought of something to simplify.... in essence, all the step generator does is turn the stepper motor into a regular motor that just spins like a lathe. The speed can be controlled by the rotating knob on the front of the step generator. All it does is send a continuous stream of pulses to the stepper driver and from there to the stepper motor.

You could do the same thing many ways, but this was the easiest route I found. Took me about a half hour to throw it together once I had the parts.
Click to expand...

And I believe that is all Mach does when this is set up in Mach the way I alluded to.
 
MVPCues said:
Yeah, you know I was offended and actually was looking up old emails to find your pho... yeah I'm 100% kidding. I took it the way you meant it. It's a very specialized GCode generator. If you compare it to Cad/Cam software it is a one trick pony.
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But it does that one trick extremely well! Thanks for making it available!

And really, calling it a one trick pony is a little disingenuous. Being able to program multiple passes, cutting from either side, cutting in either direction or both, cutting wrap grooves, etc. etc.... with many other configuration options, all from an easy to understand interface makes it very valuable for a cue builder. Thanks for making it available!

MVPCues said:
And I believe that is all Mach does when this is set up in Mach the way I alluded to.
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Yes, I going to mention what you said about running the 4th as a spindle but didn't want to confuse... (myself or icbm :) ). I looked into it a little but couldn't get my head around how to make it all work. Something about running two spindles just didn't click with me. I run UCCNC and there isn't as much documentation for non-standard configurations as there is for Mach. But yes, I'm sure it's probably just as easy to do it that way with no parts required.
 
MVPCues said:
Yeah, you know I was offended and actually was looking up old emails to find your pho... yeah I'm 100% kidding. I took it the way you meant it. It's a very specialized GCode generator. If you compare it to Cad/Cam software it is a one trick pony.
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CueCut is a very good program, it makes things so much faster. Great job Kelly and thank you for all the help you have provided over the years.
 
kgoods said:
Not quite, what I'm doing is using that same 4th axis stepper that you see attached to the lathe rail for both spinning (cutting tapers) and regular CNC control (doing inlays, ring billets, etc.). I'm doing that by either sending step pulses from that little step generator or sending the signals directly from the existing control card to the stepper driver for the 4th axis. I do that using the switch shown to switch between the two.

The whole reason for doing this is so I don't have to swap the motors/headstocks anymore. That regular taig style headstock you see in the pictures is just for reference and is the one I used to swap out with the stepper headstock that is mounted to the lathe rail in the pictures. This way all I have to do is to flip the switch when I want to run it as a spinner (like a regular lathe) or flip the switch the other way to run it as a full CNC controlled 4th axis. Hope I'm explaining that right. I'll try to do little video over the long weekend showing how it works. Probably easier than trying to explain it in words.

It was a very easy and cheap mod and probably saves me an hour every time I want to switch from inlays to tapering. It used to take a while to dial everything back in when swapping the headstocks.
Click to expand...
That cleared up my misconception. Thnx sir
 
I contacted I2R and they were interested enough to request info. I sent two of Bob Dyzurski's video and his website.
 
icbm said:
I contacted I2R and they were interested enough to request info. I sent two of Bob Dyzurski's video and his website.
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I'd be interested in what their thoughts are, please report back. I2R machines look like they'd be ideal for what we do. If money grew on trees I'd have one in my shop! ;)
 
I love Cuecut...and I have cut points on it....takes time to figure it out, by thinking out side the box, but it does handle it
 
He replied:

"As far as I know, VCarve is a software program that generates GCode files. If that is accurate, my program would have nothing to do with the VCarve software.

My program is a GCode generator. It's not different than other Cad/Cam type programs in this aspect, it is just custom written strictly for cuemakers so it can be simple but versatile to use.

A user runs CueCut. He generates a program. The setup parameters in CueCut must match the physical layout of the spinner on the CNC machine and they must match the position (where/how the axes were zeroed) of the machine. Then the CueCut generated program is loaded/opened in a software controller. The program that directly runs the machine that is used to move the machine around and run programs. Then the program is run from the software controller to make the machine move according to the program to take the cut.

So the questions are will CueCut work with your software controller and work with your CNC machine. The GCode generated by CueCut is very simple. To date, nobody has reported CueCut will not work with their software controller. A few settings/options were added to CueCut along the way when someone's software controller needed a slight change.

There are two versions of CueCut, a 2 axis CNC lathe and a 3 axis (x, y, z) CNC router version. I don't think your machine is a CNC lathe, so you would use the 3 axis version. As I mentioned in my post on AZ, you have to be able to spin the stock. Either set up an independent spinner if you have the real estate on your machine, or see if your stepper motor can safely spin fast enough to get the job done and can be put into continuous motion through settings in your software controller.

I hope that helps.

Kelly"
 
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