You Can Now Get a CNC Lathe for Your Desktop

We’ve seen many new desktop CNC mills hit the market over the years and that is a good thing. But a lot of machinists will tell you that lathes are more useful than mills, so it is a little surprising that we don’t see many desktop CNC lathes — there are only a couple of notable examples. Now that may change, thanks to the Duroxen compact desktop CNC lathe that just launched on Kickstarter.

Arguably, a desktop CNC lathe makes more sense than a desktop CNC mill. For most typical operations, a lathe is a single-point cutting machine. That means that the tool, when facing, turning, or threading, only makes contact with the material at a single point (the tip of the tool). The requires much less force and therefore much less rigidity, when compared to the entire flute contact you get with an end mill on a vertical or horizontal milling machine. So, lathes don’t have to be quite as heavy and bulky as mills to get good results.

In this case, the Duroxen is quite small. It weighs just 45kg (99.2lbs) and the overall size, with the enclosure, is 600 × 140 × 140mm (23.6 × 5.5 × 5.5 inches). The machining capacity is 100mm (3.94 inches) diameter by 220mm (8.66 inches) long, which is roughly on par with manual mini lathes. The 750W spindle spins at up to 4200 RPM and that, too, is similar to a manual mini lathe. It will run on standard single-phase household power.

The stated precision is 0.01mm (a little under half a thou), but precision specs on desktop machine tools are always pretty meaningless. Theoretical positioning precision has very little to do with actual machining tolerances. So, don’t put too much stock in that.

The Kickstarter campaign copy says the Duroxen CNC lathe is good for plastic, wood, and aluminum. That seems reasonable and I appreciate that they aren’t trying to claim it is suitable for steel.

Buyers can choose between a three-jaw or four-jaw chuck. The machine will come with a live center on the tailstock, as well a Jacob’s chuck for twist drills — though that requires manual operation. Users will be able to run G-code made by several different CAM programs, including Fusion CAM and Mastercam.

However, there is one major drawback I see: there isn’t any kind of toolchanger, or even a quick-change tool post (QCTP). There also doesn’t seem to be any provision for measuring tool offsets. In practice, that means it would be extremely difficult to swap tools during a job, because there is no way to find the distance between the tip of the tool and the spindle axis centerline.

Even so, this is an intriguing machine. If you want a Duroxen desktop CNC lathe for your own home shop, you have until May 26th to back the Kickstarter campaign. Super early birds can get a machine for just $769. Rewards should ship in October.