Setups, sources, and round stock
Updated v2.6.1At a glance
- Start from an accepted Drafting solid, sketch profile, or DXF profile
- Define a coaxial round bar or tube blank, work zero, retracts, travel limits, fixtures, and tailstock
- Pick a chuck defined on the machine, enter a grip diameter, and see real jaws in the scene and the collision check
- Keep flats, cross-holes, and other non-turned features visible as reference while the turning envelope stays conservative
- Carry the exact surviving stock into a flipped or re-chucked second setup
Every Lathe job begins with Setup. Select a Drafting solid, a Drafting sketch profile, or an imported DXF profile; choose the spindle axis and machining side; then define the round blank, work coordinate, retract position, travel limits, and workholding around it.
The setup browser follows the same compact CAM tree used by Mill. Each setup shows its linked Bodies and Sketches, Stock, WCS, and ordered Operations. Operation rows carry their turning icon, tool number, visibility control, rename and reorder actions without adding a second enable checkbox.
Accepted source snapshots
Lathe prepares machining from an accepted source revision. A later edit in Drafting is shown as Source changed without silently replacing the geometry behind an existing program. Use Update from Drafting when you are ready to accept the new revision and regenerate affected operations.
A solid is reduced to a conservative rotational OD/ID envelope. Flats, cross-holes, and other interrupted features remain visible as reference, so you can understand what turning will remove without pretending the original part is axisymmetric. Sketch and DXF profiles keep their chosen centerline, origin, axial/radial mapping, and units.
Round stock and workholding
A Lathe blank is always coaxial round stock:
- Relative bar or tube adds radial and axial allowance around the accepted part.
- Fixed bar or tube uses entered diameter, length, bore, and placement.
- Solid envelope surrounds a selected Drafting solid with a conservative round blank.
Chucks from the machine
Define your chucks once in Machine Configuration → Workholding: 2 to 8 jaws, body size, jaw width, how far the jaws stand off the face, jaw length, the grip range, and whether the jaws grip outside or open into a bore (stepped jaws too). A diagram beside the fields highlights exactly which measurement each one is. A lathe can hold as many chucks as you own, with one marked as the default.
In Setup → Workholding, pick a chuck and enter the grip diameter (it starts at the stock diameter and is held to what the chuck can grip). The jaws appear at their real size in the scene and take part in the simulation's collision checks. The project keeps its own copy of the chuck, so it opens on any computer; if the chuck is edited on the machine later, the setup is flagged and Update from machine brings it up to date. A setup can still use a Custom chuck typed in directly.
The setup also records imported fixtures, holder clearance, and an optional tailstock. These are static collision objects; Lathe does not automatically open a chuck, move a tailstock, or feed a bar.
Multiple setups and re-chucking
Add several setups when the part must be flipped or gripped again. A later setup can start from the exact remaining stock produced by an earlier setup, select the retained side of a parting cut, reverse it end for end, and apply the measured axial offset and spindle phase. If the upstream source, tool, operation, or selected piece changes, the transfer is marked stale until you rebuild it.