Member postings for Martin Cargill

Reversing light, you flash ba****d. I have the mark one eyeball fitted to my series Land-Rover. If that fails I revert to the mark one ear and park by sound, You just pull forward a bit after the crunch noise.

Martin

Many thanks for every ones input. The free pdf gives me enough info to get me started playing with my £25 purchase.

Martin

I have just become the owner of a somewhat neglected Model A. Can anyone point me in the direction of a manual or can anyone explain what all of the various controls do.

Thanks

Martin

Found one figure of 800kg. You may need to strip bits off to get the weight down so that you can use an engine crane at its max extension (so that you can get the max lifting height). Lathes.co.uk can probably provide a manual that should give you weights, dimensions and the lifting points.

Martin

Ebay item number 133400343863

Martun

I built a stamping machine( producing laminate samples) a couple of years ago. The heart of the machine was a 5T Hare Hydraulic press. What do you need to know?

The fact that it refers to a "minimum SINGLE motor" probably means that you could run your motor alongside another motor to get around the problem. Try giving Transwave a call, from memory they are quite helpful people.

Martin

Thanks to Andydextrous for taking the time to provide a copy of the manual.

Martin

Thanks to Andydextrous for the offer of a copy of the manual. I've had the machine for more than a year now and have made a few modifications to it to make it more use as a drill/cutter grinder rather than a dresser for lathe tools.

I made a new mount to make the motor spindle take a cup grinding wheel rather than the original diamond dressing wheel ( the diamond wheel was intended for dressing lathe tools and took too long to take a chip out of a damaged drill or cutter). I mounted the wheel guard further forwards to make it cover the deeper wheel.

To cope with the length of drills I moved the motor back (by approx 150mm) by adding a piece of 120 x 10mm plate between the mount and the motor.

To hold drills and cutters I bought an MT3 sleeve with a parallel outer and then bored a length of 50mm square bar and a length of 50mm hex bar to suit the sleeve. The square and hex have a big washer on one end to provide a register on the side of the tiplap "table" and a grub screw to hold the sleeve in the correct orientation for grinding (to suit the tang of the drill being ground).

I can now use an MT3 chuck, or an MT3 collet chuck to hold ordinary drills and cutters or taper shank drills can be held directly or via reducing sleeves

The orientation of the drill/cutter can be set using the grub screw and then turning the square or hex bar each cutting face can be ground in turn.

I thought that I would have to make a clamp system to hold the parts being ground but I soon found that I could simply hold the square/hex in place by hand as the cutter is being ground.

I hope this helps anyone trying to modify/use one of these machines for cutters/drills. I'll take some photos if anyone needs or wants them.

Martin

Nick. Where are you located? I have a Clarke CMD3000 that I am thinking of selling. I'm located in southern Scotland.

Martin

All very good but have you considered how you will control the machines? The existing switchgear cant be utilised easily as it will have to interface with the VFD and it won't be swappable between the two machines.

I have a VFD in my workshop that can power various machines. However to do this I have the motors disconnected from the original control gear and each one is fitted with a cable fitted with a 3 phase plug. I then have a control pod with start, stop, emergency stop, speed control and reversing switch that has to be taken to each machine (when it's in use) and this has its own cable.

Its quite messy with having two cables to the machine in use. In addition you have to work out a safe method for holding the control pod so that it's accessible when the machine is in use (and you have to remember that the existing controls don't work!!!! unless you have removed them)

You have to watch to make sure that nobody ever plugs in your 3 phase socket into normal 3 phase mains as your motor will be wired for 240 volts 3 phase and not 415 volts 3 phase, and of course there will be no switchgear feeding the motor.......

Martin

Good to see that this has been cleared up

Just a word of warning regarding Alain Foote's solution. Connecting a switch in the way that has been suggested will certainly work BUT this leaves the motor connected to one live phase even with the switch on the off position. Thus its possible to receive an electric shock from the motor terminals even when its not running (assuming that the contactor is still energised)

I once realised that some 3 phase DeWalt saws are connected in a similar manner. Their motor control switchgear only controls two of the three phases. The third phase is connected to the motor all of the time, so if the saw is connected to the mains the motor is live.......

Martin

Can you give us a picture of the truth table? It may be possible to use the switch to drop out the contactor (I assume your using a contactor/overload in the circuit) as this will prevent you from making a forward / reverse selection while the machine is running. Motors and mechanical bits tend not to like being changed from one to the other while running.

Martin

Its worth remembering that the RCD is probably looking for 30ma of earth fault current, but this can be a cumulative 30ma. As an experiment try switching off all of the other breakers in the distribution board and then try the lathe. If it trips the RCD then the lathe is probably faulty. If it runs then add the circuit breakers back in one at a time until it trips. This may show that something else is causing the problem. The usual culprits are heating elements (kettles, electric cookers, water heaters etc).

To add to the complication it may be a neutral to earth fault that is causing the problem so you may have to disconnect ie unplug or switch off items to find the source of the earth fault.

Martin

If you go for one with nylon gears its worth buying a spare set to sit on your parts shelf, they don't cost a lot and there is nothing worse than waiting for a new set to arrive when you want to get on with a project.

Have a look on ebay. I picked up a new tap for £13. Item number 224216785833 might be suitable.

Martin

Chuck up a piece of bar (say25mm) take a small cut and measure the result. Set the DRO to zero and then take a second (small) cut. Measure again and compare the measured size to the DRO size. carry on in this manner (without resetting the zero on the DRO) See how the sizes compare. This will show if the DRO has a problem and eliminates any leadscrew or backlash issues. Remember to lock the cross slide each cut. Watch to see if the DRO changes size before/during/after each cut as this indicates a locking problem.

Martin

What about using Mammod style spring drive belts? or if smaller ones are required the springs from the back of shaft oil seals.

Martin

On the same subject. My bench vice at work has become magnetised, Its a full sized 6" vice, any ideas how to demagnetise it?

Martin

My Tuppence worth (or should that be 1p worth?)

1) About 15 years ago I was calculating the size of radiators that I required for the house I was renovating. I was using an on line calculator that required room and window sizes in metres. I despatched my son to measure the rooms (he was around 15 at the time), He came back with measurements in inches. Playing devils advocate I explained to him that I needed measurements in metres. He went away and disappeared for about 15 minutes, coming back with his mother. The two of them then proceeded to tell me that it wasn't possible to measure the window in metres, because it measured less than one metre.....

After a lot of explaining I realised that neither of them understood the relationship between millimetres, centimetres and metres, nor did either of them realise that 0.7 meters was a valid measurement. It was further complicated that my sons school taught centimetres and these were not marked on the tape.

2) About 10 years ago I was Installing a German machine. At the commissioning stage I had a German engineer working with me, he asked for the loan of my tape measure. After two minutes of trying to measure a size he handed my tape back and went off and got his own. I asked him what was wrong and he explained that because our tape measures have imperial on one side and metric on the other they are very difficult to use, because no matter how you try 50% of the time the measurement you want is on the wrong side of the tape. Don't believe me? get hold of a metric only tape they are so much clearer and easier to use (provided your working in millimetres).

3) Regarding the centimetres and millimetres problem, around 40 years ago my mother worked as a secretary for a Swedish steel fabrication company. At the gates of the factory there were two large ship sized anchors. They were there as a reminder for the workforce to always check the measurements on drawings. Turns out the drawings for the anchors were in millimetres and they had been manufactured in centimetres.

Martin