On Sunday 05 January 2014 08:50:13 andy pugh did opine: > On 5 January 2014 01:56, Gene Heskett <ghesk...@wdtv.com> wrote: > > This looks a bit too good to be true, but... > > <http://www.ebay.com/itm/131084063012 > > it does look a lot like http://www.lathes.co.uk/logan/page2.html > (Which is linked from the Logan page). > > > I suspicion the motor is small, with questionable bushing in it and by > > now the bed is likely swaybacked, but it also seems like it might be > > worth some ball screws, a spindle encoder, and a 2.5 or 3.5hp > > treadmill motor running on an Empire 25 amp 120 volt controller. > > I am curious why you are attracted to that particular lathe, when > there are so many others?
The amount of 'starter' money. If it turns out to be problematic, then all I have lost is about $1500 by the time I run to the south end of FL, dropping the wife off in Mt. Dora where she has a niece who has a couch, some northwest of Orlando, while I make the rest of the trip almost to the keys, its not that far from Homestead. But I am not in love with that idea given road conditions this time of year. It could get interesting any place between here and Hotlanta. And she doesn't "travel well" the last 5 or so years. If I really wanted a nostalgia trip, I would have bought the remains of that Porter for $500 right here in town. But then I came home and went on fleabay & priced a Z screw for it since its a good 6 feet of bed. Can you spell "sticker shock" when you get above 25mm and nearly 2 meters long? I would have to have a job lined up for it before the fork lift ever went under it. :( The ball screws, motors are largely a fixed cost, scale to the size of the machine, with nearly zero relation to its age, and this would be as close to zero original cost as I've come across so far. Building a new spindle drive wouldn't be cheap so that would have to be added. In many cases in fact since modern variable speed drives seem to be limited to the treadmill scrap and 2.5-2.9 hp max. But when you can get a 2.9 for a 50 dollar bill, a controller for $150, a PWM interface to LCNC for $50 or less, the mechanical interface then turns into time to make it. That I am familiar with, I just did it on the 7x12, putting a 1.5 horse motor, not in it, I made a jackshaft that occupies the space the OEM motor took up, mounted by the same 4 point all adjustable rig the OEM used, then made a swing mount off the backside of that to mount the treadmill motor. Then a wrecked UPS van donated lots of 1/8" sheet alu to make an open bottomed box to hide the interface, power, and a 25 amp motor controller, keeping the swarf out of things (I hope). But I ran out of room when I went to add the suicide braking, so there is another smaller, just as home made box on top of the big one to hold the braking staging relays. And with a new, 5" chuck, its starting to look like a real lathe! But has no hand wheels at all unless you count the compound. I intend to remove that to reduce the spring under the tool post at some point, but miss-laid my round tuit last summer. > It does appear that all parts are still available from Logan: > http://www.lathe.com > > Normally I would prefer a lathe with a separate power shaft, a geared > headstock and an underdrive with roller bearings on the spindle. Someone said it did have hard bearings? Or are they non-adjustable cheap balls? > However, if the aim is to convert to CNC then the separate powershaft > is unnecessary, but the rest of the problems still remain. That motor > might be sized for all the power that it is possible to transmit > through the flat-belt drive. I thought of that too, a definite consideration when the work might be chucked by turning the jaws around. That is probably why there are a couple bars of belt dressing laying on its chip pan. Thats what I took those nominally 40mmx40mmx1500mm light colored bars to be. I also was not able to find the chuck keys. Thanks Andy. Cheers, Gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself. -- Lazarus Long A pen in the hand of this president is far more dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
