Mini Lathe CX704

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

July 22nd, 2021 : Added .STP file.

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Sept 22nd, 2018 : Added "Mini Lathe Assy (CX704) - With DRO and ball turner.zip" including X and Z DRO installation design + radius turning tool design, as requested by a youtue viewer. Sadly, I couldn't convert to STEP. Only Solidworks files are available.

Note : The file "Mini Lathe Assy (CX704).SLDASM" included is incomplete. See RAR archive for all files. I was contrained to add a CAD file type to publish. Thanks.

Description:
This minilathe design is very common in the hobbyist community. It is branded under several names, but the design variations between them are very limited and many

components are shared and interchangeable. They are pretty much all based on Seig design, model CX2.

Here, I propose to you my own model of the 7x12 minilathe, no CX704 from Craftex, sold by BusyBee store chain in Canada.
A good reference to understand which are the other brands which share this design can be found in the "replacement parts" section of the "littlemachineshop.com"

website. There, you will find that this lathe is very similar to "Grizzly G8688 Mini Lathe - 7x12", "Harbor Freight 93799 Mini Lathe - 7x12", "Homier Speedway 03911

Mini Lathe - 7x12", "Northertool KLUTCH 49656 Mini Lathe - 7x12", "Enco 110-0803 Mini Lathe - 7x10" and others.

I have previously drawn a mini mill from Craftex (model CX605), and my approach and goals with the minilathe model were pretty much the same.
I intend to make minor modifications to this machine, such as installing DROs, making custom tools, perhabs converting it to CNC later, etc. In order to do so, I find

it interesting to have a reliable model to CAD different designs before I start to work on my prefered ones.
That being said, you can guess that I have invested a fair (...read "obsessive and crazy") amount of time to make my model as precise and complete as I could, and I

felt it might be usefull to other machining hobbyist. So feel free to use and share.

The model was built (and rendered) completely in Solidworks 2014. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the "pack and go" function to prepare the model for sharing, due to

some issues between solidworks SP2.0 and and obscure windows update conflict.

However, I have built the model in a "flat" approach, as much as I could. By that, I mean that I have created as little sub-assy as possibles (tool holder, chuck, and

electrical wires). Everything is mostly assembled in one single assembly. Folders were used to organise the component tree, and the main modifiable constraints were

dragged to the bottom of the constraint list, and named with capital letters for convenience. So, most references should work, or should be easy to fix. If you have

issues with the electrical wires, just suppress this item, it is not very necessary. To show or hide sub assembly, just select a folder and play with Hide and Show. I

have not created any special configuration so far, nor have I included an exploded view.

A STEP file was also added thanks to Daniel Escobedo who helped by sending a converted version. Let me know if anything doesn't work with it. I'll see what I can do. My poor computer is not cooperating with me for conversions right now!

I also include some renders for a more interesting presentation.

Please, comment and feel free to ask any questions. I will try to update my model in the future as I implement modifications.

Thanks a lot, enjoy!!
Mat