Member postings for JoeT

Cheers John - that's the sort I was after - look to be about £100 odd for one with a few holders. I'm very impressed by your DIY holders - since I have a mill too, I really have no excuse not to have a go!

Very nice pics George!

What size tools are people using with the WM290? I got some nice Glanze 12mm tools for Christmas (Warco told me 12mm was right when I bought the machine), but they need a lot of shimming up in the stock tool post to get anywhere near centre height.

After just 5 mins of test cuts, I'm hating the stock tool post enough to want to splash out on a quick-change. Do I just go for the Warco one, or make/modify another one?

Cheers,

Joe.

Hi Mark - what does your stand look like - do you have any pics you could post? Mine has three little drawers on the left, 2 shelves in the middle, and a tall cupboard on the right. It seems pretty sturdy to me, but I haven't had a chance to try leveling it up yet, or done any test cuts either.

Well my WM290V arrived today - I'm curious to see how straight and level my stand is having seen George's pics!

It is one beast of a 'hobby' lathe - I forgot to allow for the effect of seeing it in a big exhibition hall - I think it will make my WM18 look puny!

Just a quick update - I've purchased 3 Geweiss GW 66015 sockets which seem really nice - good for 32A and interlocked so that you can't turn them on without a plug fitted, and can't remove the plug with the power on.

I have a couple of electricians coming over this evening to give me quotes - I will let you know how I get on!

Thanks for all the help and advice so far!

Cheers,

Joe.

Do you mean that there is movement between the lathe and the stand or that the stand and machine are wobbling together? If it's the latter, I'd be worried about the whole heavy thing tipping over on you!

BTW having been to see one myself at the Midlands show, I have ordered a WM290V - and hopefully it'll arrive this week. I will be sure to share any setup issues/secret-suss I discover with all you guys.

Cheers,

Joe.

True, but I think I'd prefer to have the high power sockets on a breaker per socket so that I can isolate them individually.

Yes, I will ask about that - I was thinking 2.5mm for the ring main and probably 10mm rather than 6 for the high current supplies - for a few more quid, I'd be able to plug in my welder into any of the high current sockets, rather than just one extra high current one.

Some people have suggested that a ring would allow the easy addition of extra sockets later - I can't visualise how that would work if you need to loop the cable through a new box though - I probably want to run my conduit above head level to keep the wall free for machines.

I think I'm at about £500 in parts alone on my little spreadsheet which doesn't seem too bad to me.

Do you think it's reasonable to ask an electrician if I can put up all the conduit and source and place all the sockets where I want them on the walls and then just have them do the wiring? I don't really want to pay a sparky to do the cosmetic bits, and the layout is rather important if I'm going to be able to squeeze everything in.

I could probably do all the wiring myself apart from hooking the new supply up to the incoming mains, but I can fully understand why an electrician wouldn't want to certify wiring they hadn't done themselves, so I'm not going to ask for quotes for that.

Cheers,

Joe.

Thanks Pete - I think I've found the same things myself on Rapid Electronics' site.

Hi Baldric - no, the ones I have in mind have a very obvious 50mm+ diameter round on/of switch - up for off, right for on IIRC. I have seen the ones with RCD's in them on the Screwfix site - I didn't realise that they had the issue with rotated plugs.

Cheers Bob - yes I was planning to use industrial connectors for the higher current supplies. The welding college has some sockets with a built in rotary switch that supposedly don't let you remove a live cable, or plug into the socket when it's 'on', but from the red colour on the plugs and the warning labels, I guess this might just be because they're 400V 3-phase. I will have a look for single phase 16/25A 230v ones.

I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up with the speed of this thread, but, yes Bob & Emgee, the property does have incoming overhead power cables.

Cheers John, yes TIG is what I'm after - I'm doing an evening course at the moment, but it's tricky not being able to practice outside class. And in a chicken-vs-egg kind of way, I only took the training because I can now probably have a TIG setup at home...

Hi Bob - thanks for that - it hadn't even occurred to me to think of getting the new CU run directly from a new fused supply after the meter. This would also prevent me tripping out the main CU if anything in the garage tripped an RCD - as others have mentioned, that's not ideal, to say the least!

Here is a picture of the old bits in my fusebox - I'm no expert, but to me that looks like an incoming fuse and some sort of resettable breaker...

I am guessing I'd need to get the leccy board involved to wire up another fused breaker post meter - unless the sparky is mad enough to work on live, unfused mains!

I'm not sure who 'the leccy board' is these days - is it the people I send the money to, or the consumer-facing side of the national grid?

Thanks for all the replies guys - and sorry for giving so little info in the first post!

We have just moved into a 1960's house with an extension built in 2000's that contains the attached garage I plan to use as a workshop for spannering and machining, though probably not both as once!

The garage is about 1.5m away from the existing CU, which doesn't seem to have any spare circuits. The CU's main breaker is 83A but there seems to be some 1960's breaker rated at 60A between it and modern digital meter. I really need to get a sparky in to tell me how much power I can really pull at once, and whether or not that 60A antique can/should be uprated to meet more modern standards. There are currently 2 40A breakers in the CU for the 2 power showers, I may have to negotiate with the mrs about hijacking one of those! Everything in the existing CU seems to be on 2 RCCB's - one for lighting and one for everything else.

The garage already has 4 13A sockets, on a circuit shared with the rest of the extension. I would really like to get these and any other sockets in the garage wired into a new CU in the garage itself so that I can isolate things from within the garage.

I agree with the suggestions of putting in another ring with room for expansion - I'm hoping I can find a sparky who will at least let me run all the trunking and position all the outlets myself, even if he/she will do all the actuall wiring. I would like to run individual feeds from the new CU in the garage to each of the high power circuits.

I don't plan to be welding while using my lathe, but I do plan to CNC all the machine tools, so I do expect them to be drawing upto 13A each and a couple to be running at once - I will probably need cooling rather than heating!

I am also a big fan of not being electrocuted, so I plan to have RCCB's on every circuit in the garage - I'd like to be able to trip something in there without tripping the main house RCCB if possible.

Anyway, I guess I need to find a few decent sparkys and get a few quotes.

Cheers,

Joe.

Fair enough - I was just worried that boring a bigger hole in the same size castings as the 280V might not leave much metal in them...

I'm thinking about a WM290V myself, and am planning to go to the exhibition in a couple of weeks to see one, but I'm wondering whether the 290V is robust enough for its larger spindle bore. While looking at an Opti BF46, I also had a quick look at their 38mm bore lathes, and IIRC they were over 400kg for a similar bed length! Is there enough metal in the WM290V's head castings for its larger spindle and 1.5kW motor?

Hi guys - obviously I am going to need to get some quotes from some electricians, but very roughly, what sort of budget would you think I'm going to need to get a new consumer unit with RCCB's and a few high current sockets (16/25A) in an internal garage?

I'd really like a welder and a higher HP single phase machine tool or two, so I don't think the existing 13A sockets will cut it.

Cheers,

Joe.

Are there any happy Syil owners out there with parts & insights they'd like to share?

Cheers,

Joe