I guess there are always multiple ways to skin the cat but I took a little different approach to the same type of problem. Keep in mind that this is my first CNC lathe so most of this is probably old hat to you guys but I doubt if many of you have the travel limitations I have to deal with. The GT-10 has a total travel in Z of 8” and that is to the face of the supplied power chuck (pictured). Whatever the heights of the jaws are, you subtract that from the 8 inches. I’vie attached a picture of the machine with the turret fully retracted in Z and the supplied chuck installed with the chuck makers standard hard jaws. The center to center distance between adjacent mounting holes in the external holders is 3.5” so problems with adjacent tools holders banging into something gets problematic very quickly.



I opted to pass on the $9,000.00 tool eye option and came up with a system to set up tools to a common length and be able to establish the common length measuring point no matter which of the three chucking deceives I have in the machine. The red standoff pictured on the supplied power chuck is part of that system. It has a 4 lb pull magnet on the bottom and extends to the common tool setting length, which also happens to be the very front of the 5C collet chuck. I have a manual chuck not shown that has its own stand off that also extents to the standard tool measure length. The genesis for a lot of this came from other posts on this forum and contributions from forum moderators and resident Guru’s



The GT is a lot more entertainment than revenue generator so 100 plus part runs happen once a week at most, the rest of the time I want to use it like I have used a small engine lather for 40 years. As Donkey is lamenting, it’s easy to get turret collisions on the SL-20 which are magnified on my “baby” as one of the more prominent forum contributors refers to it. So assuming the safest way to go is not carry a bunch of internal ( is this the proper nomenclature?) tools in the turret on a recurring basis I set out to develop a system where most of my tools were in holders that would return to the same tool position register every time they were put in the turret. Simple stops in both X and Z were installed. Photos are attached. My ER 25 collet holder’s protruded well over an inch from the face of the turret holder reducing the usable length of any drill/bar. I made up a bunch of holders and bored out the front of two of them so I could recess the collet nut into the holder. You can see it mounted in the turret in one of the photos. The ER16 holders were less than 1” ID so they will slide into the tool holders with out modification.



Each tool is measured to the common Z length position and the numbers are recorded along with the X setting. Each tool and its length registered holder is marked and numbered. Haas provides 50 tool number positions so I use those above the 8 turret positions to retain the X and Z positional readings for each tool. All the Z positions are in machine coordinates. As a Newbie operator and well beyond the optimal age to be operating a 700 ipm machine I’m paranoid about crashing the little monster. All of the above I hoped would help keep the inevitable from happening.



Using the common tool length measuring point makes establishing a Gxx offset for each particular part type necessary. I use CAM software because I’m not proficient in G code so the Gxx positioning is necessary anyhow. There are two ways to do it, the traditional (I think) procedure using the end of the stock with tool #1 and the Z measure offset button. The other is to position tool #1 on the front of the chuck jaws, do the Z measure offset button, and manually change the result by the largest Z number in your program plus your comfort margin.



This gives me the capability to stick any of my tools in the turret, enter the Z and X numbers from further down the list into the turret position the numbered tool happens to occupy,, and have confidence that things will be where they are supposed to be and offsets properly established. Then I run at 5% to keep my pants pristine.

I know most of you have wrestled with all these problems many times and I would appreciate any suggestions you may have to improve my simplistic approach to the problem.