Lathe lighting

Here is my magnetic light on my mill.

David

Watch with Janso, you may have to replace the switch after a while.

I drilled a small hole in the back of the switch when it failed, and squirted some switch cleaner in. It has worked reliably ever since. The hole location was a best guess, not scientifically placed at all.

George B.

I believe they can be dismantled; I have made a mental note about switch cleaner, however.

At the back of the lathe is a little cabinet to put tools whatever on, and also is a splash guard of sorts.

I put in 2 rows of led strip , and after install , added a curved down piece, to keep the bright light out of my eyes. This gives very good light at the back side of the lathe and gets quite a lot of light down a bore to a certain extent. The led is covered with a plastic difuser. It keeps oil and chips off the strip and makes a more uniform looking light. I chose 4k led strip. 5k seemed too blue of a light for me. I also add some led strip light , directly above the lathe centre line, and one strip above , inline with the front edge of the lathe bed. So the over head strip pairs, are only about 60mm apart. The extra set was added, as the centre line light did not illuminate as well as I hoped for. Maybe if I had a higher density strip would have been better. The strip does produce some heat , so the next lot will be on the purpose made Ali extrusions, that come with a range of diffusers to select from. There is such a wide choice these days of lumins per meter as well for the led strip that is available as well. With mine it was ordered from over seas, and that was a mistake, as I had no idea of how many lumins per meter I really needed to have a good light spread. I was only looking at initial dollars , not the real technical stuff, that I would have got if I went to a local led specialist who would have solved a lot of issues, and in reality , was not that much more expensive, and I would not have waited 8 weeks for it to arrive.

Noah had a couple of those "Admiralty" Drummonds, loaded on board 2 by 2.

Put em on Ebay b4 he went into nursing home

Edited By DMB on 07/12/2019 19:52:57

Good information from Geoengineer about the flabby jaws on the Ikea clip on lights. I have a similar style cheapy from LiDL with hard rubber facings on the jaws which work pretty well. Short fixed stalk rather than flexi which is seriously limiting so it rarely gets used. GU 10 halogen gives good spread of light on the odd occasions its right for the job. If it were in regular use I'd probably use one of the LED GU 10 replacement bulbs as the halogen one does get hot.

Couple of pictures showing how I've installed rigid, 4 joint, arm lights on my lathes so the articulation enables me to get the light at almost any useful angle. Each section of the arms is about 10" long so maximum reach is almost 3 ft. Units are RS 600-723. Proper professional type with certifications. Cheap LAP branded 8.7 W (60W equivalent) edison screw (ELS) 806 lumen bulbs from Screwfix do just fine for me.

Smart & Brown 1024 has the light mounted up on the wall about 2 ft above and 1 ft behind tailstock end. Also has a short tube light under the shelf for more general illumination. Nice but I often don't turn it on so I'd not fit it if setting up again.

P&W lathe has a longer bed, 30" between centres rather than 24", and is generally bigger so tailstock end mounting doesn't give enough articulation coverage to get into all useful positions. Instead light is mounted on the splashguard close to the middle about 1 ft up from the bed and some 2 ft behind centre line.

Everything is well out of the way of flying stuff and coolant.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 09/12/2019 16:58:46