Machine instruments are costly. To chop metallic — even comparatively smooth metallic, like aluminum — you want an especially inflexible body. Physics and the economics of market forces being what they’re, producers obtain that rigidity utilizing a number of hundred and even thousand kilos of heavy iron (or metal, in the event that they’re fancy). The price of the fabric alone, plus transport all of that weight, shortly turns into substantial, and that’s earlier than you get to the precise precision manufacturing and management electronics. However Chris Borge discovered an inexpensive workaround that permit him design this DIY metalworking lathe that ought to value about $100 to construct.
The Open Lathe V1 is one machine in a collection that Borge is designing. All the machines on this collection reap the benefits of poured concrete to realize nice rigidity at a low value. The thought to make use of concrete for machine instrument frames isn’t a brand new one. It appears to pop up each few many years, earlier than disappearing once more into obscurity. That’s doubtless as a result of complexity concerned in creating varieties into which builders can pour the concrete. And that’s the place Borge’s design philosophy actually begins gaining traction. His machines use 3D-printed varieties that anybody with a primary 3D printer can fabricate.
That is Borge’s second try at designing a lathe constructed on this approach. The primary labored, however was troublesome to assemble and carried out poorly—to the purpose the place substantial spindle deflection is plainly seen within the video, even beneath a comparatively gentle load. This new design solves each of these issues and appears to carry out very effectively.
The brilliance of this design is in how the varieties (hole 3D-printed containers to carry the concrete) maintain the opposite components, just like the spindle mount, in place whereas the concrete dries. These complicated varieties could be nearly unimaginable to manufacture with out 3D printing, however now they’re virtually trivial with hobbyist printer fashions. And after the concrete is totally dry, the varieties stay to present the lathe a pleasant look.
The fee to construct the machine, which Borge estimates at $100-150 AUD (about $66-100 USD) is a results of filament, concrete, non-printable components just like the tailstock, and the motor. An entire BoM and construct tutorial aren’t but accessible (Borge is engaged on these), however the STL recordsdata are already on Printables.
After all, this isn’t a high-precision machine and it might not fulfill machinists that work with lathes costing 1000’s (or tens of 1000’s) of {dollars}, however it is extremely inexpensive and ought to be adequate for many hobbyist wants.