When it comes to CNC operations, there are just so many options to consider. CNC machines have always been a major draw regardless of what they’re being used for, and when it comes to CNC turning, you have something that works just as well.
This article will explore the CNC turning operation, as well as what it entails generally.
What Is CNC Turning?
CNC turning is one of the most prominent forms of CNC machining. Some professionals call it CNC lathing, and it’s also been known to some as lathe turning. Whatever you call it, however, this machining process involves taking a workpiece and spinning it on a spindle. At the same time, a cutting tool helps to take out the express material.
At the end of most CNC turning machining operations, you’re left with something that looks cylindrical. As a benefit, the process is automated, so you don’t need to do anything. Just set the terms, let the machine work, and end up with the perfect working CNC-turned parts.
Whenever you’re looking to create symmetrical parts, CNC turning easily works for you. From threads to grooves and much more, the machine is easily functional across the board in making them. But, those aren’t the only things that can benefit from a good CNC turning – some others include the following:
- Material Shafts: In many instances, you see CNC turning being used to make shafts that look cylindrical.
- Bearings & Bushings: Also known for their cylindrical shapes, bushings need to be very precise in how they’re made.
- Fasteners: Screws, bolts, and other fasteners are developed with the use of CNC turning, ensuring that they can be boat consistent and accurate.
- Dowels & Pins: These components help with proper alignment. With their cylindrical shape, these CN-turned parts are very effective.
- Components for Connection: We have components such as cylindrical fittings and inserts
- Flanges: The cylindrical shape of flanges makes them perfect for connecting different pipes and plumbing components. As you can expect, they are among the most popular CNC-turned parts.
- Handles & Doorknobs: Remember those cylindrical handles and doorknobs? Well, CN turning helps to fashion them from scratch, so they are much easier to use.
Components Of A CNC Turning Machine
CNC turning is a very intricate operation. And befitting something as delicate as this, it’s important to have the right machine to handle it.
Several components come together to make up the CNC lathe turning machine. These include the following:
- The Machine’s Bed: Here, you have the component at the base of the CNC turning machine. It ensures that the machine is stable and that components are properly fit.
- A Headstock: This is a component that sits at the end of the bed and which holds the spindle. As the latter rotates, the workpiece is finally cut and shaped appropriately.
- Leading To The Tailstock: The opposite of the headstock, the tailstock ensures that the other end of the workpiece is also supported. You can move it along the bed, depending on the workpiece’s size.
- The Rotating Spindle: Pretty much, you have a spindle that rotates the workpiece as the latter is being cut. With the right speed and direction, the spindle plays a critical point here.
- An Additional Chuck: Also known as the collet, the chunk helps to ensure that the workpiece stands properly in the spindle. They mostly come in handy when working with irregular workpieces, though, so you might not notice them.
- A Workpiece Carriage: This is essentially a housing area that holds the cutting tools and takes them to the spindle.
- The Feed Drive: Here, you have a system that controls how the workpiece or tool moves when the machining process goes on. It includes different mechanisms that help move the carriage and cross slide, ensuring that the CNC turning process is hitch-free.
- A Control Panel: You’ll need an interface to put the instructions for the CNC turning lathe operation. With things like a keyboard, a display, and control tools, you’re able to set all major parameters – tool changes, feeds, etc.
- The Internal Coolant: To help manage heat buildup, the coolant is also available as part of the CNC turning assembly.
How CNC Turning Works
Like many other CNC machining operations, CNC turning can be a bit of a complex and cumbersome process. However, when done well, CNC machining turning will lead to some truly impressive outcomes.
So, what is the process of turning with CNC machines? Different manufacturers have their processes, but these are the usual steps in the workflow:
Start By Setting Up Your Workpiece
The first step for you will be to secure your CNC turning machining workpiece in the chuck. Ensure that the fit is proper, then move on.
Assemble Your Tool
Next, you choose the cutting tools and mount them on the turret of the CNC lathe. Turrets allow you to use different tools, so be careful as you choose.
Program The Machine
Head over to the CNC turning machine and input the programs needed for the turning process to be as smooth as possible. Program things like speed, feed rates, and even how deep you want the cut to be. Remember that this is usually done using Computer-Aided Manufacturing software, so you want to know how that works too.
Start The Process
In most cases, the machine will need to be initialized before the turning process itself can start. This ensures accurate positioning and establishes the reference points for the machine.
Spin Your Workpiece Around
The spindle will be activated, and it’ll rotate the workpiece. This makes it much easier for the cutting tools to get to work, and they’ll be able to seamlessly take out any excess workpiece material.
Keep Up With This & Make Corrections
As the CNC turning process goes on, you’ll need to keep an eye on it through your feedback mechanisms. If you need to make any changes, feel free to do that.
Calm Things Down & Remove Your Chip
You might need to apply some coolant during the process to take care of any heat that accumulates. Then, use chip evacuation systems to take out any generated chips.
Complete Your Process & Unload The Workpiece
Add your finishing touches to the processed material, then once your work is done, you can take out the finished part from the lathe.
Types Of CNC Turning Machines
Whenever you’re working the CNC turning process, it’s important to know just the typeof machine you’re working with. Now, there are different examples here, so you want to keep an eye out for the distinctions:
Engine Lathes
First, we have engine lathes. These are pretty much traditional manual lathes that have had CNC controls placed in them. They work perfectly for mostly small and medium workpieces, and they are very affordable when you need to retrofit something you already have with CNC capabilities.
CNC Swiss Lathes
There’s one thing a CNC Swiss lathe will focus on – precision. They also work well with small parts, and they provide simultaneous machining capacities for different features.
Multi-Spindle Lathes
As the name suggests, these are lathes that have different spindles that can all work on different workpieces at the same time. As a result of this design, these turning machines provide impressive overall efficiency.
Turret Lathes
Fitted with a tool turret, these lathes hold different tools, so you won’t need to waste any time with tool changes as part of the machining process. These machines work well for medium to large-scale operations, and they are quite impressive across the board.
Vertical Lathes
With their vertical orientation, these lathes also work well for large-scale operations where workpieces are much heavier and might not necessarily fit the horizontal lathe options.
Flat-Bed Lathes
These CNC turning machines come with flat, horizontal beds where you place your workpiece. They also work well with larger workpieces, and their beds are especially notable for the stability that they provide as the turning process goes on.
Slant-Bed Lathes
Unlike the flat-bed options, these CNC turning machines come with beds that are inclined at a specific angle. With this intricate design, chip evacuation can be improved significantly, and rigidity can be bolstered by a great deal.
CNC Turning vs Milling: How Do They Compare?
When it comes to CNC operations, it’s pretty difficult to see two options that are as identical as CNC turning and milling. Both can be used to achieve the same thing, and they generally work quite similarly. So, people tend to conflate them a lot.
Still, as you’d expect, there are lines of divergence. Here is a table that compares the two, so you get to better understand their dynamics:
| Parameter | CNC Turning | CNC Milling |
| What Does it Do? | Spinning a workpiece while excess material is taken out | The cutting tool moves here, but the workpiece doesn’t |
| How Does The Workpiece Look? | In most cases, the workpiece is cylindrical | Parts here can be pretty complicated, so there’s no uniform answer exactly |
| How Does The Workpiece Spin? | A spindle helps ensure that this happens | Here, the workpiece does not spin |
| How Does The Tool Move? | The cutting tool here moves straight along the workpiece | You can find the cutting tool moving along different axes, so toolpaths can be complex |
| What Do The Tools Look Like? | You mostly have a single-point cutting tool that’s mostly fixed | Cutting tools have different points, but they are all fitted on your spindle |
| How Easy Is The Setup? | Pretty easy, especially compared to CNC milling | Tends to be more difficult, especially since you’re using more tools |
| How Quickly Are Materials Removed? | This tends to be lower | Speeds are much higher, especially if you’re working with bulk materials |
| How Much Can You Produce? | CNC turning tends to be better for small and medium-scale operations | This process has the capacity for much higher production volumes |
| How Much Will You Spend | Tool and equipment costs tend to be much lower | Considering that the process is more complex, you’ll be paying more for tools |
Advantages of CNC Turning
There are several reasons why you would want to engage CNC turning as an operation. Of course, CNC machining in general offers a bunch of benefits – but, here are the reasons why turning is especially prominent:
It’s Precise And Repeatable
With CNC turning machining, you have a process that offers incredible levels of precision while also being very repeatable. Since it’s automated, you can handle it time and again, and rest assured that you won’t lose any accuracy at all.
Work With Very Complex Shapes
The fact that the process also works with workpieces that have different geometries means that there’s barely anything you can’t work with when it comes to CNC turning. That versatility plays a huge part in why the process is so popular today.
Let the Computer Do The Work
Like all other CNC machining operations, turning is also great because the manual labor involved in the process is as minimal as possible. Just let the computer handle the actual cutting, and you just monitor things.
Generally, this setup means that you can achieve high levels of efficiency while cutting much faster overall.
You Don’t Need To Struggle With Programming
In general, the use of the Computer-Aided Manufacturing software that aids CNC turning isn’t so challenging. It’s pretty user-friendly, so as long as you’re committed to seeing how it works, you should be fine.
Reduced Heating Optimizes The Tool Life
Thanks to the fact that you can add coolants – and also optimize the cutting conditions – you can rest assured that your machine will last as long as possible. Plus, if you feel like the conditions are suboptimal, you could always control the cutting p[parameters to ensure you get the right stuff.
You’re Not In Any Real Danger
With the right safety features being part of the turning process, you can rest assured that you won’t be in any significant harm’s way.
Make Changes Where Necessary
The fact that you have real-time process monitoring and can receive feedback means that if there are any issues whatsoever with your CNC turning process, you can easily make changes and correct your course.
The Process Is Very Scalable
Are you conducting small-scale turning? Would you like to improve the rate of production and cutting, CNC turning pretty much allows you to scale your operations without having to go through a lot.
Applications of CNC Turning
So we’ve answered the question of what is CNC turning is and looked into what turning brings to the table for anyone looking to improve their machining operations. Now, let’s look at some of the industries where this process shines:
CNC turning is a versatile machining process that finds applications in various industries due to its ability to produce precise components with rotational symmetry. Some of the industries that commonly make use of CNC turning include:
Use In Developing Cars
We see a lot of use for CNC turning in the automotive industry. Here, the process is used to make things like axles, shafts, and other precision parts. These parts will in turn help engines and other systems to improve efficiency.
The Use In Aerospace
Just like we have in cars, CNC turning also helps in the aerospace industry to develop several tools that help planes work – from fasteners to parts of landing gear and much more.
Medical Industry Applications
You can see the process being used to develop surgical instruments, implants, and much more that are used for a broad range of purposes by medical professionals. Considering that a lot of products being used in this field need to be accurate, you can see why CNC turning is so important.
Efficiency For Oil & Gas Operations
Fittings, valves, connectors, and more might be small, but they work quite well in the oil and gas industry to ensure efficiency for products and facilities.
The Process Also Helps Make Sporting Goods
Indeed, sporting equipment like bicycle parts and even golf clubs are made using the CNC turning machining operation. When you need high-performance tools that come with special features, CNC turning is where you go.
Building Military & Defense Components
In the defense sector, CVNC turning is used in making weapon parts, components for armored tanks, and much more. This is another industry where precision is doubly important, so you can see why CNC turning will be key.
Helping With General Product Manufacturing
There are several other ways that CNC turning aids in ensuring that overall manufacturing can be as reliable and effective as it is. Whether it’s making consumer goods, developing components for larger machines and more, the process is quite effective across the board.
Conclusion
CNC turning has become one of the most reliable CNC machining operations. With its incredible benefit profile, it should come as no surprise that the process is used in different industries.
If you’d like to learn more about this machining process, feel free to reach out to us at HM.