PCD Diamond Insert Part 2. Turning aluminium with diamond inserts from Sumitomo and Pinnacle tools 

Link to Part One • PCD Diamond Insert Par...
In this follow up to Part One, I turn some aluminium at 1600rpm using a Korloy AK carbide insert and at 3900rpm using diamond inserts from Pinnacle tools and Sumitomo. The Sumitomo insert is a DA1000 VCGT110304. Insert prices, Korloy AK from eBay under 2 aud, Pinnacle tools from ebay around 15 aud, Sumitomo DA1000 around 65 aud.
A little history of these lathes
Manufactured by Hercus in South Australia, these lathes were sold to many educational facilities and to countries all over the world. They were sold in the USA under the name of Rockford Pro 2000. An industrial version of the PC200 is the Novim, which comes with an industrial enclosure for coolant capture.The lathes began as a “Computurn” model which used electronics by a company called ANCA. These lathes were stand alone cnc lathes, a small version of what might be found in industry.These were replaced by lathes which had a Hercus control system and used an interface card in a desktop PC to connect with, and control the lathe. These lathes used the same castings but their appearance was much changed as they no longer contained all the controls for the lathe. These were now all in the PC, apart from a small Pendant which offered some controls when in Manual mode.Early PC200 models used a CAD/CAM software that ran in DOS on a PC that had an ISA slot (long discontinued on new PCs) and had analogue electronics. The 8 tool turret option on these lathes was operated by a small motor and gearbox and used shot pins to lock the tool in position.As PC operating systems were upgraded, Hercus released Windows CAD/CAM software. These machines still ran analogue electronics. The last version of the machine used digital electronics and used 32 bit Windows based CAD/CAM. Both these machines used a turret with a motor and worm and worm wheel drive. Options for all these lathes included a Leader air chuck with no through hole, an air operated collet chuck, a 8 position tool turret, a tailstock, a QC tool post and a coolant pump.