The CNC Lathe Turns Raw Material

The CNC lathe turns raw material, which can be metal, plastic, or wood among others, and uses a computer to guide a tool to cut shapes and profiles. The CNC lathe greatly reduces human error overall and can lead to a more productive and efficient manufacturing environment. Although initial costs are high with CNC lathes, they will quickly pay for themselves with their speed and accuracy. Accuracy The CNC machine was invented by John T. Parsons in the late-1950s and revolutionized the manufacturing industry by creating parts with pinpoint accuracy. Because the cutting tools are controlled by a computer, you can within. 0001 inches as long as your tooling is sharp and the conditions of the spinning material on the lathe are set to optimize the cutting process. A CNC lathe can cut many parts before the tooling will need to be change and each one will be identical. The only possible errors are related to human interaction. If the program is off or the tooling is set improperly, damage and inaccuracies can occur. The machine will only do what it is told through the control unit, so if the material is not properly set up by a human, the CNC control will not be aware of that fact. Speed CNC lathes are not only accurate but can be run very fast. This leads to increased efficiency and more parts per hour. Humans have limited feed rate ability on manual lathes. Because CNC lathes often have 12 or more tools in a turret, they can change to another tool rather quickly. Most manual lathes have one tool that can be used at a time, severely limiting the speed of the machining process if more than one tool is necessary to complete the part. The CNC lathe can also change tools in a fraction of a second and can feed into the parts fast thanks to power motors seen on modern CNC lathes. Cost Effectiveness Although CNC lathes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, their overall speed and accuracy make them a very cost effective choice, as many operations can take place within them. Whereas you may need two or three manual lathes and a manual mill to get a part done, you can do all of those operations and more in a well-equipped CNC lathe. This leads to a substantial savings on cost per part over manual machines. Also, the accuracy contributes to less waste through human error. Your labor costs may seem higher due to the high cost of trained CNC lathe programmers and machinists, but if you break it down by part, it could be substantially lower. Source: ehow.com