Member postings for Steviegtr

Welcome Glyn. You won't go far wrong on here, some very knowledgeable guys. Looking forward to seeing your pics once you upload to your album.

It wouldn't surprise me if they were all made in China & uk companies & the like just rebadge. I have watched a few youtube vids of people who have fit them & they all seemed very pleased with them.

Is that a Granite bed. Also is that one of the Chinese lathe's,, it looks nice. Sort of super modern.

Yes Raphael I did think about the wooden top. I will have to see how true the bed is. The wood is hardwood ply so not easy giving. It may move over time. Cannot beat steel I guess.

Steve

Thanks for that. I have wired the e-stop to an input you can program. I have set it to cut the inverter instantly. But it only coasts to a stop. No d.c injection. I asked the question as to whether it was possible to make something to stop the chuck unscrewing. Someone said that some of the chucks had a grub screw to lock it on , but not sure exactly what was meant. Pretty good electrically as it was my career but the lathe. Just a learner.

Edited By Steviegtr on 15/01/2020 00:15:16

Forgot to say the missing speed pot is my fault, I damaged it with too much heat from the soldering iron. Need to order a new one.

This morning my motor from Machine mart arrived so I have had a busy day. The motor is a Italian made 3 phase 240v 1.1kw. I have fitted a steel tray I had made & fitted the genuine Myford feet mounts. This is mounted on a 54mm thick hardwood ply base which consisted of gluing & screwing 3 sheets of 18mm ply together & staining. The foot mounts we had to remake the threaded rod parts as they are only 1" long on the underside. The bench being 54mm thick now meant remaking the 5/16" rods. All ready for the morning when the brother in law comes to help We will be using a mobile engine hoist to hover over the mounts to locate. They are extremely heavy & was worried about trying to lift it on manually Luckily the motor was not much bigger than the 3/4 hp one I took off. 1/2" fatter & about 2 1/2" longer. I managed to make it fit on the original cast alloy rack at the back without too much trouble. I was expecting to have to make a conversion plate , but not needed so saved time. Also picked up my Cross slide which I have had 4mm surface ground off the top so the wedge type 250-111 quick change tool post will accept up to 1/2" cutters. Some pictures of the project so far. The lathe is a 1977 Super 7 vintage so has some good features on it.

I have just refitted the pulleys & shafts today re, fitting a new 3 phase motor & inverter. I oiled the clutch as in the Myford manual. It has been stood sometime so it must have been dry. Before & after is an amazing difference. So I could see you having problems that you had. Being that you must have never oiled it. A presumption from you not knowing where it was. It says disengage the clutch with lever & drip a few drops of oil in the gap & let it run round. Not verbatim Just roughly what it says. I found I put a bit too much oil on it & it started running down the pulley towards the belt. So maybe only a little bit to apply. As others have said with an inverter you can fully program soft start time up to about 10 seconds & same with stop. Also a nice feature is the jog for turning the spindle a little. at a time & you can give that a set point frequency. I have done the whole conversion for a little over £240 & that was using a Omron quality inverter , although it was 2nd hand so was taking a risk on that. Note the missing speed pot. Broke it while soldering wires on to it. Too much heat. 

Edited By Steviegtr on 14/01/2020 23:01:33

The conversation was probably not exact with either term I used I was generalising on a fact My local store did not have what I wanted. There was much more to the conversation too but i'm not writing a book. Just stating I bought from Machine mart online & the reason why. Of course what is correct is at the time of writing this, I still have no motor. 15 Days for a 48hr delivery. Not bad eh.

I want some of what you are drinking.

For a typical UK 1.5 hp motor these could be:

8 V/Hz, 60Hz and 2.5A.

Where do you live. The frequency in the uk is & has been for a long time 50Hz.

I think this is the same one I bought from ebay badged up as Van Haus. Went duff recently as the batteries eventually die. The way through that is to open it up & resolder 2 new button batteries in. The solar bit is only for the switching. They seem to work well though. I use mine for TIG welding

Steve.

Out of interest how many of you guys with the inverters use a ten turn pot. I have fitted one & for the life of me I don't know why. It maybe because all the ones we fitted for Nestle foods had to have fine control for production work & line matching to other inverters in the chain. But for an old Lathe ???

I do a bit of video recordings of when I am out on my motorcycle in a group. I use a gopro hero 5 session. This is mounted on the side of my crash helmet. Obviously at anything over 20mph the wind noise to the unit is too much. I have tried a few things. 1 is I downloaded a audio recording app for my galaxy phone ,which accepts Bluetooth. Most of the apps do not. I then use my microphone which is in my helmet connected to my Bluetooth phone unit. I can now do a running commentary or stay quiet. The 2nd is I bought a Tascam audio recorder. They are not expensive. So you could hold this in your hand or have it in a pocket. It has a very good gain volume on it for far or near recordings. It is also stereo. So the way I do the video is when I switch the camera on & my audio recording . I hold my hands in front of the camera & clap my hands hard twice. This is the clapper board method you see in film sets. Then when I edit the video, of which I use Pinnacle studio 22. Or you can download Hitfilm express free. I lay the video track on line 1. Then my audio tracks on line 2 & 3. Then you have to zoom in close & look for the 2 spikes in the audio & line them up with your hand claps. Takes a bit of getting used to but it works perfectly. You can now turn up or down any of the audio tracks to suit what you want. My Son Video's shows for a dance group & I taught him that method which he does every year when the shows are on. He even uses multi camera. Where my gopro is up by the spots above stage & he has 2 video camera's running at different locations in the hall. Then again you simply download your footage to a p.c & open your editing studio & edit away. The beauty of the programs is they have lots of special effects you can use to really spruce up a dull video. I even put audio music clips in if there is a point where we are all overtaking cars,,, I put Benny hill music on. Always gets a laugh. I also edit out the speedo on the bike just in case. Hope this long explanation helps you Regards .

Steve.

That was the 1st place I rang on the 30 dec 2019. I was told we do not have the 3phase 240v motors 1.1kw in stock here , you will have to purchase online.

I agree with you but it seems some on here have put a larger motor on with the premise that they will have less than with old motor & run slower too. Cannot see the point really. ????????

Choochoo thingy has'nt

Wow expensive.

My friend has had a Chinese lathe for a few years now. He loves it. I asked him about it as I was looking for a lathe & was considering one. He then went on to tell me things that he had done since owning it. Seems he spent a long time correcting wonky bolts & threads that were stripping. Gear problems , drive problems. I asked which one should I go for & his advise was don't. My problem is limited space. I am using my garage as a workshop as well as having a large car & 2 motorcycles in there so not much room. Maybe once I get the Myford up & running I will see all the short falls of it.

Steve.

This is one worry I have. I asked if there was any way of locking the chuck so this can not happen. Could be very dangerous.

The older type was at the side of the pulleys under the facing case. The newer type is behind the left hand belt cover & is in the centre of the top pulley. It is brass looking with an adjusting screw in the centre. You should know as it needs oiling every few days if you use the machine a lot. This type is silent. The older cast iron one can get noisy.