Welcome to the Wheaton High School CNC Lathe documentation! This document was created and maintained by Wheaton students to make sure that people can use the lathe after we’re gone.
This machine is a Boxford Dueti Turn & Mill CNC Lathe and Milling Machine. Its a combined CNC lathe and mill. More specs can be found here.
Many things have yet to be documented, and in fact, much of that is because we, the creators of these docs, are not yet experts.
The lathe requires knowledge and skills across three domains:
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The physical lathe itself. You will need to understand how the lathe works, such as its tooling, its very basic operation, and other things about the machine. Docs on this subject can be found in the docs/lathe folder.
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Fusion360 for Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) It is possible to use other software, like OnShape, to CAD, and it is possible to write your own G-Code, but these docs will assume you are using Fusion360. Docs on this subject can be found in the docs/fusion360 folder.
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Mach3 for controlling the lathe. Mach3 is a piece of software that runs on Windows computers and is necessary to control all aspects of the lathe, such as moving it around and running programs. Docs on this subject can be found in the docs/mach3 folder.
We recommend starting by following the quick-start guide, which will help you make your first part on the lathe. After you understand the basics, you can move onto reading the more advanced documentation.
This documentation also comes with a YouTube playlist that includes some helpful videos to provide help with a variety of things relating to the lathe. The individual videos will be linked to in the relevant documentation, but you can also view the entire playlist and peruse it at your liesure.