New WARCO machinery

Have got the new machinery installed, cleaned and partially checked. I had to partially strip the Warco WM250V-F lathe to decontaminate it from the foundry sand/grease mixture. I would have thought that a quick wash in solvent of the component parts on the production line would not have been such an expensive procedure but it seems like the Chinese feel otherwise.

Pleased with the WM16 milling machine, have almost completed a version of a diamond tangential lathe tool holder on it. Hope it's as good as I have read on here.

I have done only one quick check on the lathe by turning a 25mm dia. ally rod over a 100mm length and getting a .001" difference ( bigger at chuck end), alright I 'spose but wished for better.

If you are reading this George I have attached a movie of the shed and the new kit. Apologies for the very noisy auto focusing on my new EOS 650D but I just wanted viewers to hear just how noisy this lathe is.

**LINK**

Rik

Hi Rik. The noise on that lathe is atrocious ! I have the Chester UK equivalent (DB20VS) and compared to that, mine just whispers. I would ask Warco to have a look at that right now. Cheers Derek.

Might be a suspect bearing there Rik, difficult to say from a short clip like that.

You're going to need some good chip guards on that mill - once it starts cutting the swarf is going to be over everything!

Looks quite cosy in there

Chris

Sounds like a gear head without any oil in it! Don't thi9nk it should make that much noise. Ian S C

Hi Rik,

you have used the available space very well. I am sure you will enjoy youre nbew machinery. My slightly bigger lathe makes quite a bit of noise when running.

Thor

Does sound a lot rougher than my 280. I would swing the banjo out of mesh and run the lathe up you should just ge a little motor moise, that will eliminate any gear noise and if there is still a problem then its likely in the spindle. You could slip the belt off and see what the spindle turns over like by hand.

I'd also look into relocating the safety stop button as you only have the recessed one accessable which is harder to hit in a hurry

No gear noise on mine as you can hear between the cuts, infact you can hear the radio in the background

Edited By JasonB on 24/06/2013 08:20:22

I would refer your video to "Warco" a new machine shoudn't be making that sort of noise, "Warco" themselves need to check that machine out..

Thanks for the comments on my new and noisy lathe. Jason, I have done as you suggested. Banjo is now out of mesh, I removed the belt and can detect nothing untoward, the spindle is free running with no nasty grinding or crunching.

However, should the motor be making that loud humming noise?

Listen here:

**LINK**

Rik

Rik.

That sounds like the speed controller itself, rather than the motor and is something that one of my lathes does as it has a DC variable speed motor. So it could well be normal for your machine.

Everything else sounds OK too.

Martin.

Yes they do start to hum a bit as the speed drops, its probably magnified by the "box" you have placed the lathe in.

Just need to spend some time playing with the Banjo, it may be you have a tight spot or loose mesh. Also check what I said in the other thread about the sides of the changewheels touching.

You need to check the "leveling" ie., twist in the bed. Google "Rollie's Dad's method" for a straightforward explanation.

Russell.

If I've read the spec sheet correctly the lathe is driven by a DC motor? Presumably speed control is via PWM, rather than linearly changing the applied voltage.

The 'buzzing' sounds like 50Hz, ie, mains frequency, and doesn't seem to vary with motor speed. Normally I'd suspect 'chatter' on a contactor, but I assume there are no contactors involved? So it's either a dodgy transformer, or a steel panel vibrating in sympathy with a stray magnetic field, or there's something awry with the control electronics. I would have thought that the PWM base frequency would be a lot higher than 50Hz.

The feed motor on my mill, and the two workhead motors on my cylindrical grinder, are variable speed DC motors, none of them make anything like that noise. There's no way I'd accept that as normal............

Regards,

Andrew

I suppose it does depend a bit on what sound level it was recorded at and what its being played back at but by way of comparrison I've just been into the workshop and done the lathe & X3 both with DC motors.

The banjo is still in mesh on the lathe and the drive shaft engaged and turning. Lathe is on the slower of the two pully combinations 50-950rpm

Edited By JasonB on 24/06/2013 11:50:53

Edited By JasonB on 10/11/2019 10:11:09

Jason - I found your last film clip very useful in making a comparison betweeen our lathes, thanks for taking the trouble. I think that mine sounds louder because as you pointed out, my lathe is living in a "box". The only thing that still puzzles me though is that (you can hear it in my 2nd bit of film) now and then at the slower speeds the "buzz" completely dissapears - abeit very briefly. I think I'll send a link to WARCO and ask them for their comment and of ccourse, I will post any comment/s here.. ------ Rik

It goes when the lathe is rapidly slowing as the chuck is rotating faster than the motor, I'm sure Andrew can explain the reason why, back EMF maybe?

Hi Rick,

That difference could be caused by the bar flexing.

If you put a 4" long by 1" diameter bar and a force of 10 lbs into this beam deflection calculator, you get a deflection of just under half a thou... this would translate to the 1-thou difference you see.

Aluminium may be too flexible to judge the parallelism of your lathe with all but the very lightest of cuts.

With steel the deflection would give an out of round of less than 1/3 of a thou.

Note that I'm assuming a cutting forse that equates to a bending moment of 10lbs, which could be wildly incorrect as I don't know speed, tool condition or type, depth of cut or feedrate!

I just wanted to show that an unsupported bar may not be as rigid as you expect.

Neil

Rick,

Your noise appears to be slack meshing of the changewheels, I had similar when I got mine. I spent some time over the weekend checking on mine & adjusted the backlash using the 'paper' method to achieve a closer .003" gap on all the changewheels & it has definately improved the noise level,bear in mind thjat the sheet metal changewheel guard will amplify any sound as it is virtually an 'empty steel box'.

I initially did as Jason described & started from the motor, belt off, no undue noise, belt on, nothing untoward from the spindle, preload in both cases seems to be ok, chuck spins a couple of revs before stopping itself when spun manually, set the backlash & ran the machine up through the slow speed range 50 - 1000 rpm & it is much quieter so I would remove that element of noise deduction.

If you go back to the original thread 'Warco family' you originated you will see a snapshot of the 'paper' backlash setup I did.I'm not saying that all this family of lathes are perfect,some will be better that others,( Monday a.m & Friday p.m. syndrome as we used to say about our car production line) & Jason's 280 sounds to be the bees knees. One point I did mention in the other thread I noted that there is some axial slop on the change wheels ..on mine, this will have the effect of the teeth not running parallel with each other for each wheel.so there will always be some noise from this direction, I meant to measure the difference in ID & OD but 'forgot' so will have to do that in the near future. If I can get my head round doing a similar video in the future I will post it on other 'Warco 250 &WM 16 family' thread, then we won't be looking at different threads & we Warco family geeks won't be jumping from one thread to 'tother.

BFN

George.

Neil, if the bar were flexing it would be a bigger dia at the far end not the chuck end!!

I provided WARCO with a link to the second film (the one with the quadrant/ banjo unmeshed) and having watched and listened, WARCO engineer reports "If you are refering to the grumbling noise that is completely normal. I'm not sure whether HE is refering to me or the lathe! ----- Rik