Member postings for colin beighton

Good morning each. Thank you John S. for setting the record straight. I guess Alan Timming's involvement explains the watchmaker style round bed.

Re the software problem,your links give a lot of new information and open new possibilities. Very interesting!

Thanks everyone for your helpful input. Best wishes to all. Colin.

HI all,thanks for your interest. I'll tell you what I know about this lathe,or rather what I think. I may have got it all wrong.

The bed is a bar diameter 1.5 inches which protrudes 19 ins. from the headstock. The carriage and tailstock both ride on this.

It started life as a Connect 123 or 121, possibly in USA. They were bought in by Shesto engineering who did some work on them and rebadged them as the Shesto Cadet. They were CNC lathes. The original software ran on the old BBC Micro computer but was specific to this and does not transfer easily to modern computers. Also the motor drivers run in the old resistance limited mode. So I would plan to scrap all that, keep the motors and get new drivers and software. I expect that would mean a new driver board for the spindle motor as well.

There is not much information about them on the net and the little there is, is from way back. Perhaps they did not sell well?

Thank you Les for that link. It should keep me out of mischief for some time!

Good morning blowlamp.

1. The big driving motor for the spindle is supplied from it's own circuit board which has terminals for armature and field etc. How is the speed varied? Do you feed a digital or analogue signal into some of the other terminals? Do you need to have the tacho connected also?

2.The two stepper motors are made in Italy (MAE Offanengo) and have 4 pairs of wires. The wires of 2 of the pairs are joined together. How do the wires connect to the coils inside the motor?

Also known as a Connect 123 lathe.?

I rescued one recently and have it polished to a nice sparkle. Now I need two bits of (simple) electrical information. Can anyone help?

Hi Richard. I have long thought that Hungary was the world's centre for all things crazy,but Romania sounds a close second. These stories are hilarious. Is there any chance of you and wotsit getting together to write a book. I'm sure it would sell well within this community. Regards, Colin.

Thanks everybody for all your comments. I have learnt a lot.

Regards, Colin.

Good evening Gordon. I gather from what you say that setting a caliper to fine limits is

A) possible

B) not impossibly difficult.

All of which is good news. As you are an expert in this type of manual dexterity,can I ask

1)How carefully do you look after and fettle your calipers

2)When you are busy working which measuring instruments do you reach for first?

Regards. Colin.

Hello mgj. I agree with all that you say. I'm afraid I was opening my mouth before putting brain into gear. I have read in books that people could set spring calipers very accurately and was really musing on how good they were and how to test the sensitivity required to be that good. But that will be just a bit of fun for myself to do.

Thank you Dick,I will view your pictures with interest.

May I now suggest-topic closed?

Thanks again. Colin.

Good morning mgj. Thank you for input.

Another idea to try would be to make some bolt on tips of various shape,rather like the sets of tips one can buy for vernier calipers.

That just leaves the problem of detecting when the tips make contact with the work. I know practising daily for ten years will do it, but I can't guarantee having ten years left. So I was busy devising some clever electrical gadget when the name RENISHAW suddenly lit up and I discovered I was 40 years too late. As usual!

Simply detecting electrical continuity will probably be good enough.

Thanks again. Colin.

Good morning Dinosaur. Your reply is exactly what I wanted. I shall proceed accordingly.

Thank you.

Edited By colin beighton on 22/03/2011 20:33:36