When using a CNC lathe, one of the most important settings is the turning toolpaths. A poorly set up toolpath can either leave you with a good part, or produce a bad part. We'll walk through the basics of how I set up toolpaths on my CNC lathe
The first thing to do is determine what type of toolpath you want to create. The three main types are straight line programming, closed loop programming and open loop programming. For this example we'll look at straight line programming
To create straight line toolpaths we need to use a CAM program which tells our machine where each cutting point will be and how long each cut will take. This information is called a G-code file and can be saved as an STL file for later reuse in other programs or programs such as Mach3 or Proe 8 which allow you to export your own custom made G-codes for specific applications such as turning heads for automotive parts or creating custom pipelines for chemical processing plants.
cnc turning setting procedure
