# Cx701 lathe report



## Brian Rupnow (Oct 6, 2015)

Yesterday I brought home my new CX701 lathe from BusyBee Tools in Barrie. This is their new offering with 1.5 HP variable speed D.C. 90 volt motor, which runs off 110volt house current. It runs on a 15 amp breaker with no trouble that I can determine.  It is sold as a 12" x 28" machine with a 1.5" spindle bore. Careful measuring shows that it will turn an 11" disc not 12", and the 28" is pretty damned optimistic. It measures 28" from the back side of the chuck mounting flange to the face of the tailstock at the most extreme tailstock setting. It has a power feed longitudinally  and also has a power crossfeed. The powered crossfeed can be crashed if you let it exceed the travel limits. (I talked to the head tech at BusyBee to determine that this morning before I turned the machine on.) 
The machine looks very good, although I haven't done any actual machining yet. It is an absolute beast weight wise. I know----I brought it home in my ford Ranger and unloaded it with my cherry picker hoist. Needless to say, this is not for the faint of heart!!!
I am going to be testing all the aspects of this machine as I delve into it deeper, and I will post about my experience with this lathe.----Brian


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 6, 2015)

About .002" total indicated runout at 2" beyond chuck jaws. No cut was taken prior to this measurement.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 6, 2015)

This afternoon I turned a piece of steel and faced a piece of steel. Both operations went well. I tried out the power feed in both axis (Just to see if it worked.----It worked.). I find that to be VERY SCARY stuff. I have never used either on a lathe before. The damned Chinglish instructions leave a great deal to be desired, and I don't have anybody to ask. However, I'm very happy to see that they work more or less as advertised.----I had one little panic when setting the lathe up. It was a fairly major ordeal getting the lathe out of my pick-up truck and up on the stand by myself. After assembling the stand to the lathe and cleaning up all the mess from uncrating it, I plugged the lathe in, turned the speed dial to it's lowest setting, and turned on the lathe.---NOTHING HAPPENED!!!! It was stone dead. Okay---Don't panic.--Get the trouble light and plug it in to see if the wall socket was "live". Yep, it was. Check the fuse in the machine---it was okay. Twiddled the start/stop buttons, nothing happened. Got on the phone to BusyBee head office and spoke to the Tech guy at head office. First question he asked was "Is the forward/reverse selector in Forward, reverse, or at the neutral position in the center?" Told him I didn't know but hang on while I run out into the main garage and see. It was in the center Neutral position. Now I know---friggin' thing has to be in either forward or reverse for the machine to start. -----Question---Now that I don't have that neat little handle on the right hand end of the leadscrew like my B2227L lathe, I will be using the compound to advance/retract the tool longitudinally. I see a great possibility here for turning a taper. (Which I don't want to do!!!) There is a protractor dial on the compound, but that will only get it "close" to being parallel with the ways. Do I have to use a dial indicator and something gripped in the chuck to set the angle on the compound rest to be parallel to the ways? If so, that will become a giant pain in the arse, because I frequently change the angle for chamfering and other nifty things that are not parallel to the ways.


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## canadianhorsepower (Oct 6, 2015)

Brian Rupnow said:


> ) There is a protractor dial on the compound, but that will only get it "close" to being parallel with the ways. Do I have to use a dial indicator and something gripped in the chuck to set the angle on the compound rest to be parallel to the ways? If so, that will become a giant pain in the arse, because I frequently change the angle for chamfering and other nifty things that are not parallel to the ways.



Brian 
Nice purchase.  You will love this I had one it's a killer 
now for those Protractor dial I did this on all the lathe I had 
use a 1,2,3 block against the side of my chuck and my tool holder.
this Must be zero:wall: a couple of time I simply pop the rivet out 
slot the hole or drill new one to secure the plate on the real "0"
Do it ounce then you can rely on it .

enjoy your new tool


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 6, 2015)

Thanks Luc---this is a relatively new lathe for BusyBee. Their first production was in 2011.


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## tomrux (Oct 6, 2015)

Big handle on the apron will give you longitudinal feed. compound feed is really only used for tuning tapers and other things that requires something other than parallel feed.

Tom R


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## canadianhorsepower (Oct 6, 2015)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Thanks Luc---this is a relatively new lathe for BusyBee. Their first production was in 2011.



Yes I know that's when I got mine late 2011
change about 8 month for a 12x36  was it a Good idea.:wall::wall:

cheers


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 6, 2015)

One thing I have noticed that is irrelevant but just "different". Floor to center of spindle on the old B2227L that I have been using for the past 6 years is 40 1/2". Floor to center of spindle on this new lathe is 45 1/2".  That is going to take some getting used to. I might have to get a box to stand on.---That reminds me of a story a farm kid once told me about a Hereford bull and a Limousin cow----Nah, nevermind---we don't want to go there--


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## Swifty (Oct 6, 2015)

Hi Brian, I usually do a quick alignment with a dial indicator when resetting my topside, only takes a minute or less to set correctly. 

Paul.


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## kiwi2 (Oct 7, 2015)

Hi Brian,

                I have been looking at a WM250V-F which looks to be the metric equivalent of the next size down (10 X 22).
 The sales guy fired it up and I noticed a loud electrical humming noise at the lowest speed. Does your lathe do this? Do you know if the motor is brushless?

Regards,
Alan C.


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## Swifty (Oct 7, 2015)

Brian Rupnow said:


> One thing I have noticed that is irrelevant but just "different". Floor to center of spindle on the old B2227L that I have been using for the past 6 years is 40 1/2". Floor to center of spindle on this new lathe is 45 1/2".  That is going to take some getting used to. I might have to get a box to stand on.---That reminds me of a story a farm kid once told me about a Hereford bull and a Limousin cow----Nah, nevermind---we don't want to go there--



I went out and checked my lathe specs, its 42 1/2" plus 1/2" packer under the leveling feet to the centreline, this makes yours another 2 1/2" higher again. I find mine a good height, but I'm only 5ft 10"tall, unless you are 6' tall, you might find it beneficial to build a duck board (as we called them at work) a few inches high to stand on.

Paul.


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## Journeyman (Oct 7, 2015)

Hi Brian
Nice lathe should serve you well. I have the slightly smaller WM250 (UK), I find that the carriage handwheel and dial very useful and can easily turn up to a shoulder with good repeatability (there is lots of backlash but you are only going in one direction so not a problem). The T-slots in the cross-slide let you remove the compound slide and bolt on a fixed toolpost if you need to and a good first project is to fit a QCTP. You will find with time lots of small improvements can be made to enhance your enjoyment of the lathe. Saddle stop, carriage lock, hinges on the change wheel cover etc. 

Mine hasn't got the power cross-feed but I read this on the Model Engineer site where someone ran into a bit of a problem with the cross-slide jamming up, there is a brass shear pin in the system to prevent too much damage. The angular markings for the top-slide set over on mine isn't too accurate, the top-slide needs to be set parallel with a dial gauge or similar.

One thing worth doing is to check the screw cutting change wheel chart on the headstock, there was an error on mine! Hope you have it well bolted down it is very top-heavy.

All the best with your new lathe.
John


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 7, 2015)

kiwi2 said:


> Hi Brian,
> 
> I have been looking at a WM250V-F which looks to be the metric equivalent of the next size down (10 X 22).
> The sales guy fired it up and I noticed a loud electrical humming noise at the lowest speed. Does your lathe do this? Do you know if the motor is brushless?
> ...


I don't know if mine is brushless or not, but it doesn't hum.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 7, 2015)

Todays update:: When I bought the lathe, it didn't come with a tailstock chuck, so I bought a 5/8" chuck with a detachable MT3 arbor. The arbor has a tang on it. The arbor will only fit into the tailstock if the tailstock is extended  1 1/4".--Huh?? That didn't seem right so I called BusyBee.--Seems I need an arbor without the tang. Only problem is, they don't sell an arbor without the tang that has the correct taper at the other end to fit the chuck. They do have a drawbar type arbor, but the damned thing has the wrong taper at the chuck end. Local Busybee called head office while I was there, and was told "We source our tooling from all over the world (read India) and we can't be responsible if the arbor doesn't fit the tailstock. "----Give me a friggin' break!!! Next step is to cut the tang off the arbor with my metal cutting bandsaw and "file to finish".


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## canadianhorsepower (Oct 7, 2015)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Todays update:: When I bought the lathe, it didn't come with a tailstock chuck, so I bought a 5/8" chuck with a detachable MT3 arbor. The arbor has a tang on it. The arbor will only fit into the tailstock if the tailstock is extended  1 1/4".--Huh?? That didn't seem right so I called BusyBee.--Seems I need an arbor without the tang. Only problem is, they don't sell an arbor without the tang that has the correct taper at the other end to fit the chuck. They do have a drawbar type arbor, but the damned thing has the wrong taper at the chuck end. Local Busybee called head office while I was there, and was told "We source our tooling from all over the world (read India) and we can't be responsible if the arbor doesn't fit the tailstock. "----Give me a friggin' break!!! Next step is to cut the tang off the arbor with my metal cutting bandsaw and "file to finish".



Brian 
If I can give you any suggestion don't cut it. I did and you don't
need much torque and it will spin on you. Instead I mark then length
and put a stop screw in the barrel to stop them from turning.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 7, 2015)

canadianhorsepower said:


> Brian
> If I can give you any suggestion don't cut it. I did and you don't
> need much torque and it will spin on you. Instead I mark then length
> and put a stop screw in the barrel to stop them from turning.


Luc--that's what I had to do with my old lathe, but on it at least you can get the arbor all the way into the tailstock without needing to have it extended. the arbors are not expensive---less than $10 each. I may cut the tang off, then grind a flat on one side for an anti-rotation screw.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 7, 2015)

Two minutes with a zip wheel slayed that dragon.


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## bazmak (Oct 7, 2015)

Hi Brian,when i got my new C4 i used the same stand from my SC3 and it was too high so i made a 3" duckboard.Its easier on the feet than standing on concrete but you have to get used to the trip factor.Regards Barry


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 7, 2015)

What do I have to report after a full days working on the new lathe?--Well---It works good. I'm scared right to death of the power feeds, so I haven't used them. Trying to take a longitudinal cut with that large wheel on the front of the apron is a joke. I really miss the little handle on the end of the leadscrew. I am only running the lathe with the belt in the low speed (50 rpm to 850 rpm) range, but it seems to run fast enough to leave a good finish. It is very powerful. I still haven't really figured out those three "levers" on the front of the control panel. One handle (the one on the left) changes the direction of feed if you use the power feed option.  Apparently the lever in the center changes the rate of speed of travel of the carriage, again if you are using the power feed option. The lever on the right is called the "feed/thread selector lever" and I'm not real sure what it does. So far today I have turned, faced, drilled, and bored and partially parted off a part I am making for a customer. All of these operations went well, though I must admit the boring was kind of "cheesy"---but only because I didn't have the right tool for the job. All of my tooling is set up for the quick change toolpost in my old lathe, and I  haven't yet mounted the quick change toolpost on the new lathe.--More tomorrow.


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## Swifty (Oct 7, 2015)

The feed /thread lever should select between the lead screw or feed shaft. I have read in the past that you always hand fed when turning, once you are used to it, power feed is great.

Paul.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 7, 2015)

--I'm not ready to tackle threading so I will leave that lever on the right alone. I have to get used to either using the power feed for the carriage or get really good at setting the compound rest parallel to the ways and use it to move the cutting tool along. The reality of life is that most parts I make are short. Don't really need power feed for short parts. I have had a couple of people on the forums say that they use the power cross-feed for parting off. I have to think about that one.


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## Cogsy (Oct 7, 2015)

My first lathe was a Sieg C3 and it had the hand wheel on the apron for longitudinal movement, my current lathe has a small hand wheel on the end of the lead screw. I have to say I hated the new configuration when I first made the change. I'm used to it now but I think I'd still prefer the hand wheel on the apron. I guess I'm saying you might be surprised once youget used to it.

I have never had power cross feed, so i can't comment, but I do use power long feed often, especially when trying to get a nice uniform finish even with a smallish part. You'll get used to that quickly as well.

Congrats on the purchase!


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 8, 2015)

When I purchased the lathe, I also purchased the BusyBee equivalent of an AXA quick change toolpost. This  BusyBee unit is identical in physical  size to one I  purchased a few years ago from Little Machine Shop which I have on my B2227L lathe. Some careful measuring shows that it will work on the new CX701 lathe, but the maximum tool size it will take and still allow me to get the tip of the tool at or very marginally below the center of the spindle axis is a 3/8" square  tool. It also lets me get the the tip of the cut-off tool marginally below center. This doesn't pose a major problem, as the 3/8" square tool is what I have been using for the last 6 years, and it does everything I need it to. I now have to do a bit of head scratching to see what is involved in mounting the quick change toolpost, hopefully without trashing any of the current toolpost parts in case I ever want to change back.


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## Jasonb (Oct 8, 2015)

Brian, I part off all the time with the power feed, try it you will like it.


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## johnny1320 (Oct 8, 2015)

Brian Rupnow said:


> When I purchased the lathe, I also purchased the BusyBee equivalent of an AXA quick change toolpost. This  BusyBee unit is identical in physical  size to one I  purchased a few years ago from Little Machine Shop which I have on my B2227L lathe. Some careful measuring shows that it will work on the new CX701 lathe, but the maximum tool size it will take and still allow me to get the tip of the tool at or very marginally below the center of the spindle axis is a 3/8" square  tool. It also lets me get the the tip of the cut-off tool marginally below center. This doesn't pose a major problem, as the 3/8" square tool is what I have been using for the last 6 years, and it does everything I need it to. I now have to do a bit of head scratching to see what is involved in mounting the quick change toolpost, hopefully without trashing any of the current toolpost parts in case I ever want to change back.



Once you go to a quick change tool post you will not go back


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 8, 2015)

Johnny--I have had a quick change toolpost on my old lathe for five years. This installation is on my new lathe.---Brian


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## RonGinger (Oct 8, 2015)

> I have to get used to either using the power feed for the carriage or  get really good at setting the compound rest parallel to the ways and  use it to move the cutting tool along. The reality of life is that most  parts I make are short. Don't really need power feed for short parts. I  have had a couple of people on the forums say that they use the power  cross-feed for parting off. I have to think about that one.



You do need power feed for short pieces- it will give a much better surface finish than you will get by hand cranking. To me that is about the most fundamental lathe operation. It is also the best way to not make tapered parts, unless you want a taper.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 8, 2015)

Well!! That little exercise went far, far better than I expected it would!!! When I asked what lathe their quick change toolpost kit from BusyBee would fit, they all hummed, and hawed, and shuffled their feet.--Nobody really knew. This morning I started pulling apart the toolpost which comes on the lathe to see just how things compared to their quick change  toolpost "kit". I absolutely did not want to change either the original lathe toolpost nor the quoick-change toolpost kit in any way. The upshot of it all was that I only had to make one new part to mount the quick change toolpost on my new lathe. i am attaching a drawing of the part I made. With the quick change toolpost mounted in place, I can get the top of a 3/8" HSS cutting tool about 1/16" maximum  below the center of the chuck. It also works fine with my boring tools which mount in the quick change toolpost, and with the 1/2" deep parting off tool. It would NOT work with a 1/2" square HSS because you can't get the tool low enough. This is all fine by me, as 3/8" square cutting tools are what I have been using for the past 6 years.


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## johnny1320 (Oct 8, 2015)

Busybee told me the quick change tool post wouldn't work on my CT089, didn't take much to make if work.


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## Swifty (Oct 8, 2015)

Looks exactly like the QCTP that I purchased earlier this year, the only negative thing about mine is that the sockets on the screws clamping the tool bit soon round off. My tool holders take 5/8" shanks and I have also made a special holder for 20mm shanks that I used on the old 4 way post. I occasionally change the toolposts around depending on which tool I want to use, it takes about 20 seconds.

I like your topslide table with the T slots in it, the ability to move the whole topslide in further is a great idea.

EDIT, I just went out and checked the code on the QCTP, mine is a 250-200, a slightly bigger size.

Paul.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 9, 2015)

Today we got very bold, and tried out the power feeds. I think I have the levers on the front sorted out. The left hand lever lets you choose which direction the table moves, right of left. The center lever has three positions, and gives you 3 choices of table speed. .0025" per revolution, .005" per revolution,  and .010" per revolution. (I'm not sure if that is inches of travel per revolution of the spindle or inches per minute. Since it is tied in with a gear train to the spindle which is variable speed, it only makes sense that it would be inches per revolution of the spindle.) The right hand lever appears to be a two position lever that either rotates the lead screw for threading or the feed screw for moving the carriage. There are a number of signs proclaiming dire consequences if you manage to engage the "feed lever" and the "threading lever" at the same time. I think they might be talking about the half nut lever on the apron, but I'm not sure.--Maybe someone can help me out with that. Since I have no intention of threading in the immediate future, I may remove that half nut lever and store it somewhere so I don't make a mistake and engage it.---Or put that right hand lever away somewhere after putting the feed screw into the "on" position.---Whatever guarantees that I don't inadvertently engage both "threading lever" and "feed lever"at the same time and wreck things. It might be my imagination, but it looked as if the travel speed of the crossfeed was a different rate of travel than that of the carriage.--It seemed to be a lot slower.--Would that be right?  Now that I have tried out most of the things there are to try out on this lathe, I will vacuum up all the chips and give it a good bath with odorless solvent to get rid of all the "Chinese Gunk" that came on it and oil all of the many ball oilers.


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## Swifty (Oct 9, 2015)

Brian, I would be surprised if the feed shaft and the lead screw both rotate at the same time, the lever for selecting feed or threading should only have one or the other turning. As for the feed rate, it will be per revolution. On my lathe, and I think that it's fairly common to most, the cross feed is half the longitudal feed rate.

Paul.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 9, 2015)

Thank you Paul.  ---A question--I would say that 95 percent of the work I do on a lathe is either turning an o.d. up to a shoulder or boring in a blind hole. I wouldn't dare to use the power feed on a blind boring job. On my old lathe with the handle on the leadscrew (complete with graduations) I would bring the tool up to the face of the work being turned or bored, then back the tool out clear of the part, advance the carriage towards the chuck by turning the leadscrew handle until it was at the distance I required from the face, then move my carriage stop up to the side of the carriage and lock it in position. Then I would manually advance the carriage while taking cuts until it came up against the carriage stop. If the distance was especially critical, I had made provision for attaching an altered digital caliper to the carriage and to an adjustable stop mounted to the lathe bed on the right hand side of the carriage. As long as I can keep the compound rest set perfectly parallel to the headstock on this new lathe, then I can effectively repeat the same process for turning and/or boring as I did on my old lathe. However, if I choose to use the power feed for turning an o.d. up to a shoulder, first, without a DRO (which I don't want to buy) how do I know where to stop my first cut, other than scribing a line on the part and using it as a visual reference? Secondly, if I then want to make more cuts using power feed, do I depend on the visual cue to know when to disengage the power feed or do I just get "close" to the shoulder, then disengage the power feed and finish the cut with the big wheel on the front of the apron?


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## bazmak (Oct 9, 2015)

For power feeding just get close then finish manually
I never power feed into a blind hole,and only use the power feed on longer lengths.The more you use confident you get.Keep going,its like driving a car
most of the time you dont think its just automatic.Good luck.barry


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## Swifty (Oct 10, 2015)

Brian, I often use the power feed for internal and external shoulders. For short shoulders my usual set up is to wind the saddle close to the start of the job, use the saddle clamp to lock the saddle, zero the dial on the saddle handle being careful to take out the slack, then using the top slide, I touch the end of the piece to get my zero and then move it in the required amount and lock in position. I can now use the feed on the saddle and when close to zero I disengage the feed and wind the rest by hand. It's surprising how close you can get under power, I usually stop about .040" away.

For longer pieces, I just take a cut until close, zero the handwheel on the saddle, measure and adjust with the topslide.

Very easy after a bit of practice.

I'm thinking about putting a readout on the lathe, that will make life a lot simpler for me.

Paul.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 11, 2015)

Well, unless something truly horrible or unusual happens, I am not going to post any more on this lathe. It runs good, it does everything it is advertised as doing, and seems like a tight, well engineered lathe. The manual could be a lot better, but it does cover the basics. When I purchased the lathe, I also purchased the stand it is setting on in the picture. The lathe comes with 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, steady rest, follow rest, and faceplate and all of the change gears. I also purchased a 5/8" tailstock chuck and arbor, a tailstock live center, and a quick change toolpost. My total cost, including the hateful 13% goods and services tax come to $4500 Canadian. In spite of some of the bad press I managed to dig up on the internet about this lathe, I would recomend it to others to buy. I am happy with my purchase.----Brian


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## Swifty (Oct 11, 2015)

That's great Brian, and I feel that the more you use it, the happier you will become with you decision to purchase it. Enjoy using it.

Paul.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 18, 2015)

Yesterday marked my first true test of the longitudinal power feed on this lathe.  I had a 12" length of cold rolled round steel that I wanted to use on my bandsaw conversion, and for some strange reason the entire length was .003' to .004" larger than .625".--Not much, but enough to keep it from sliding into the sheaves or bearings I was using. I chucked it up in the new lathe and made two cuts, each .001" deep over the full unchucked length using the power feed. It was a delight to see the fine chip coming off and the resulting smooth finish. I held about 6" in the chuck and turned the first 5 1/2" from one end, then flipped the part around in the chuck and did the other end. It left a small difference in the center where nothing rides on the mandrel, but nothing that some emery cloth wouldn't quickly take out. This was due to about a .002 TIR on the chuck itself, which is about the same TIR as my older lathe.--I was very impressed!!!


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 25, 2015)

Today, with heart in mouth and hand on E-stop button, I tried out the power cross-feed for parting off steel. It was a 3/4" diameter piece of 1018 cold rolled, with a 9/32" thru hole in the center. The lathe was turning at 400 rpm. The piece parted off beautiful---no squealing, no chattering, nice 3/32 wide chip rolling off the top of my 3/32" parting off tool. I used lots of squirt on cutting oil. I am very impressed. I actually parted off two pieces for a machine I am building.--So--another milestone reached with the new lathe.


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 14, 2015)

I have reached the conclusion that even though the dials on this machine read in sensible increments, to really get any worthwhile usage out of it, I am going to have to put a set of DRO's on it. There isn't really any good way to utilize the longitudinal power feed with any degree of accuracy without a set of digital readouts. I can't use the power feed to bring the carriage to a stop up against a "carriage stop" the way I could on my old lathe (on which there was a handle on the end of the leadscrew to move the carriage longitudinally by hand).  The travel on the top-slide is only 1.6", which isn't enough for many things. I did add a small digital scale on the top-slide, but it simply isn't enough travel to be really worth-while. The overall robustness and  accuracy of the lathe seems to be great, but if you don't know how far the tool is travelling, then the lathe has little value. I also miss being able to rotate the top-slide for chamfering and tapering operations.---I can still do it, but then I need to use a dial indicator to reset the topslide perfectly parallel  to the "ways" if I only use the topslide with it's limited travel for longitudinal movement. I am still learning when it comes to lathework in general, and some of this learning curve is expensive.


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## kiwi2 (Nov 15, 2015)

Hi Brian,
               I had power feed on my old Emco V10P lathe (which I think was about the same size as your Cx701) and I really liked it.
If I wanted to machine up to a shoulder I would set the stop on the lathe bed, engage the power feed and disengage it a mm or so before the carriage hit the stop. I would then use the wheel on the side of the lathe to move the carriage up to the stop. 
The only problem is that you need to pay close attention so you don't run the carriage into the stop under power, so you should run a slow power feed rate until you gain confidence in your ability to disengage it in a timely manner.
Hope this helps as power feeding is a great advantage.
Regards,
Alan C.


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 15, 2015)

My bad, guys!!! I had mistakenly made the quick change toolpost nut about 0.140" too thick. It worked fine, but interfered with the travel of the topslide. I gained almost exactly 1" by trimming the thickness of the nut. It still isn't the full 3" as the literature specifies, but it's much better than it was. My total top-slide travel now measures  2.630". Sorry about that!!! I have not updated the drawing I posted earlier in this thread to show the correct dimension because this idiot website will not let me go back and edit a post, so be warned, the drawing posted earlier in this thread is incorrect. The drawing posted here is correct.


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## dsage (Nov 16, 2015)

Hi Brian:

Doesn't your big saddle hand wheel have graduations? If so can't you use those for longitudinal movement?
You'll find a DRO indispensable even if just to eliminate the pain of backlash. I abandoned using the graduated hand wheels shortly after I got my lathe. Especially since the graduations on my carriage hand wheel were goofy. I suspect I have a metric machine with inch graduations. It makes no difference now that I have the DRO's
You won't regret adding a DRO to both axis.

 If I turn my top slide parallel like you have it the tail stock runs into the handle. This happens when for instance you have a short piece in the chuck and you bring up something like a center drill in the tail stock.

  I rarely use the top slide except to turn short tapers so I always keep it at an angle of about 29deg so it's ready to do threading and I just leave it there. As you said it's sort of useless to limit your long travel to the length of the top slide and way  too much trouble to reset it.

 If I want to do a small chamfer I just turn the tool post around to present the side of the tool bit to the corner at whatever angle by eye (usually around 45 or so). The tool post is easy to turn and it doesn't matter too much what angle you set it to for normal machining. (I use carbide inserts).

BTW You (and others) have more balls than I to try parting off under power. Keep your safety glasses handy. I've had parting tools dig in even under hand feeding resulting in flying parting tool pieces and damaged parts.
 A nice project is to make yourself a rear tool post for your parting tool. It works so much better and there's little chance of it digging in and causing problems. You can usually leave it in place all the time if you have enough cross feed.

My 2c 

<edit> I may have used the term "top slide" where I meant "compound". I forget the proper terms. Anyway hopefully you get what I mean.

Sage


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## sledjunk (Nov 17, 2015)

Brian

Thanks for this thread.  I have the same lathe and, as it is my first lathe, have been learning as I go.  I too had issues with Busy Bee trying to recommend a tool post.  I found that, by their own admission, the Barrie store was much more experienced with woodworking than metal working.  The Whitby and Concord stores were much better.  

They recommended a different toolpost, but it will need modification, so I have not installed it yet as I am inexperienced and afraid to make scrap metal out of either my lathe or the toolpost


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 18, 2015)

Sledjunk--Really, the quickchange toolpost they sell fits on this lathe with no modification to the lathe or to the toolpost if you make the nut I posted. The only limiting factor is that the largest cutting tool you can use is a 3/8" square one. Where are you located?---Brian


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## sledjunk (Nov 19, 2015)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Sledjunk--Really, the quickchange toolpost they sell fits on this lathe with no modification to the lathe or to the toolpost if you make the nut I posted. The only limiting factor is that the largest cutting tool you can use is a 3/8" square one. Where are you located?---Brian



Brian
First off. OOPS!  My lathe is a CX 706 not 701.  It is a smaller version. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





I am in Pefferlaw, so basically across the lake from you.

This is the QCTP that Busy Bee recommended,  http://www.busybeetools.com/products/TOOL-POST-QUICK-CHANGE-FOR-MINI-LATHE.html but it would need some modifications, either to the QCTP (open the bore at the bottom to allow for the larger flange on the bottom of the tool post mounting stud) or alternatively, modify the combination slide to replace the tool post mounting stud.


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## Brian Rupnow (Dec 4, 2015)

I have a problem, and it may not be as large as I see it, but it is a problem nonetheless. This lathe has has no carriage "lock" on it. There is a way to lock the topslide in place and there is a way to lock the cross-slide in place, but there is no way to lock the carriage in place on the ways. This is probably a good marketing strategy for Craftex, because if there was a carriage lock on it, sure as Hell somebody would lock the carriage, forget they had done so, and then engage the power feed and break something. You can "kind of" lock the carriage in place by not engaging the power feed at the gearbox and putting the lever on the front of the apron in "power-feed" position. This stops the carriage from being moved with the big hand-wheel on the front of the apron, but it will move (As measured with dial indicator) 0.019" left to right because of backlash in the power feed mechanism in the apron. This isn't a lot, but it becomes HUGE if you are doing anything like machining the rod journal on a crankshaft, as shown in the pictures. The slot is only .375" wide. The journal when turned to finished diameter will be .375" diameter. This means that to machine it, you must use a tool with a lot of "stick-out" from the tool-holder, because of the offsets in a typical crankshaft. I have machined the "sides" of the journal to finished dimension. Now I have to move the tool in and finish turning the journal to finished size. (It is 0.430" diameter right now.)  The tool is .125" wide. So--the tool only has to traverse 0.25" in total left to right to take this finish cut on the diameter. With a good set of carriage stops mounted to the front "way" on the lathe, I could turn the wheel on the apron and move the carriage left to right, depending on the carriage stops to prevent going to far and have the turning crankshaft whack the top of the tool and break something. I find the movement you get by turning the wheel on the front of the apron to be very "coarse" and to not give a very good "feel" for what the tool is actually doing. I prefer to make the tool move left to right or vice-versa by turning the feed handle on the topslide. This gives me a much better control of the tool movement.---I can design and build an adjustable "travel limiter" which I can set up to limit the amount of travel of the topslide very accurately.--But---I still have that damned 0.019" of slop in the carriage to contend with. So--Okay--I can design and build a "carriage lock" that will securely lock the table in place as well---but it must be a "lock" which can slide without damaging the carriage or the ways or the gearbox if the "power feed" does accidentally get engaged. I can do that too--but now it's beginning to become a lot of extra work. This is definitely not a job where the power feed would ever be engaged but, "stuff happens". How do other folks with this lathe, or a clone of it handle this situation?---Brian


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## 10K Pete (Dec 4, 2015)

That really sucks not having a carriage lock! I thought all lathes had one.
Can't help directly though as I have no experience with that lathe.

Pete


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## grapegro (Dec 5, 2015)

Hello Brian,
                I have a 9 x 20 lathe similar generics to yours, and used a simple carriage lock mod fro Steve Bedair's web site. Simple, effective and easy to do. Works great for me.
Regards, Norm


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## Journeyman (Dec 5, 2015)

Hi Brian,
I have the smaller version of your lathe (WM 250) it has a saddle lock but as delivered it doesn't work. On mine there is a small 'L' shaped block on the right hand side of the saddle that hooks under the bed just in front of the rack. This stops the saddle lifting but it also has a slot sawed half way through it so that one end will bend up and clamp to the bed it is worked by one of the allen headed bolts on top of the carriage. There is no way this block can bend, it is much too thick, so to make it work they leave the other screws loose!! I modded mine by cutting the block in half and fitting a lever to it to make it work (see saddle clamp on my website  ). The photo shows removing the block, the line of three holes parallel to the bed are where it is held in place. The largest hole is for the clamp allen bolt and the two smaller ones  (which were left loose) hold the guide block under the saddle. Is there anything similar on your lathe, if it is like mine it won't work without some work!

Cheers 
John


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## dsage (Dec 5, 2015)

Hi Brian:

Ditto what Journeyman posted. I didn't think my lathe had a carriage lock either but I found a tall loose nut sticking up on the top of the apron apron one day and found out it was a lock that you had to turn with a wrench. The nut pulls up on a bolt that apparently pulls up on some sort of clamp on the ways. It has to be oriented just so or it doesn't clamp. I thought about putting a handle on it but sometimes it has to be turned /released more than a turn to activate / deactivate. Perhaps you have missed something. Try a wrench on everything in site. But then - I'm sure you already have.

Sage


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## dlhoulton (Dec 5, 2015)

Like dsage said it's not very obvious but the carrage lock is on the right side. On carrage assembly you have three allen bolts on each side the top one on each side are what locks it. On mine the left one is tight and the right side is loose. When tightened it will lock the carrage. Its hidden from view but I took one of your pictures and indicated them. Hope this helps.


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## Jasonb (Dec 5, 2015)

I replied to Brian on another forum but to save those on here posting their warco etc carrage stops the latest batch of big bore 280mm swing machines don't have a carrage lock. Though these also have tapered gibs on the cross slid ewhich brian's does not.

Possibly due to a lareg number of them having DROs fitted which cover the screw.


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## Brian Rupnow (Dec 5, 2015)

Dhoulton--Thank you, Thank you, Thank You!!!! That is indeed a carriage lock. I would have never known that in a hundred years. I just tried it on mine. This is bloody marvelous!!! Now I can go ahead and build an adjustable travel limiter for my topslide. I will post plans/pictures when I do that.---Brian


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## dlhoulton (Dec 5, 2015)

Your welcome Brian. I have the same lathe only the U.S. version (Precision Matthews PM-1127-VF-LB). Same but different color scheme. I've had mine for a few months now and have had to figure out a few things also. If I can help in any way let me know. My latest upgrade was to figure out how to put a DRO on it. That was a real dilemma for the cross slide.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 25, 2016)

I am experiencing what seems to be an out of balance 3 jaw chuck. (the one that came with the lathe.) It reads .002" total indicated runout on a 1.25" diameter ground and polished shaft held in the jaws and measured 1" out from the chuck jaws, which is perfectly acceptable, but I am getting a bad "out of balance" vibration between 600 and 700 rpm. No bouncing and vibrating below 600 rpm, and absolutely no vibrating and bouncing when ran with the chuck removed, spindle only. This seems to indicate  to me that the chuck itself is out of balance.  Has anybody else with this lathe and chuck noticed that "out of balance" issue?


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## dsage (May 26, 2016)

Hi Brian:
You've had that lathe for some time now. Was it always that way. Dumb question  since I guess you would have noticed. Maybe it has collected some swarf inside somewhere. Hows the TIR on the outside of the chuck body? Seems unlikely but maybe the body was made out of round. OR how about the mounting plate outer circumference not round.
Strange. Keep us posted.

Sage


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## Brian Rupnow (May 26, 2016)

dsage--That is the chuck that came on the lathe. It didn't have a vibration when I bought the lathe a year ago, and I haven't had any catastrophic events since I bought the lathe.. --nothing has changed. I can't remember for certain, but knowing me I would have wound that chuck up thru all the rpm ranges when I first bought the lathe and chuck together, brand new, checking for any unbalanced condition. Today will be spent running with jaws fully closed, with jaws removed, etcetera.---Brian


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## Brian Rupnow (May 26, 2016)

I just tried the chuck from 0 to 700 rpm with the jaws tightly closed, no material held in the jaws. Vibration is still there at around 620 rpm, just not quite as pronounced.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 26, 2016)

Tried it with vice jaws removed. Still same out of balance at same rpm range.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 26, 2016)

I just tried the 9.5" diameter x 1" thick faceplate on the lathe, and the vibration is still the same at about 620 rpm. If I put one hand on the headstock and hold a good pressure against it, the vibration becomes much less. This leads me to believe that my chuck is probably not out of balance after all.---I think it has more to do with the cheap tin cabinets which the lathe is supported on than any "out of balance" factor in the chucks or faceplate. Probably I am just going to live with it. I know that a heavier, possibly poured concrete base would probably get rid of (or at least "soak up") the vibrations, but I will probably just leave things and keep my speeds below 600 rpm.


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## ICEpeter (May 26, 2016)

Brian,
It seems to me that what you are experiencing is naturally occurring resonance in that particular speed range when a number of factors come together to create this vibration. Most machinery (especially the lighter build machines we are using) have a resonance trigger level that occurs at certain points / speeds. The exception would be heavy build equipment with significant mass resulting in a low frequency resonance that would not be noticeable typically.

Peter J.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 26, 2016)

Okay--Let us leave the "unbalanced chuck" issue, as I agree it is probably harmonic resonance, a result of having a flimsy sheet metal base.  My next "quest" is to figure out how to cut a thread with this lathe. I have never cut threads before---I know how to in theory, but not in practice. The users manual is for all intents and purposes "useless". It gives change gear charts that I don't know how to read. (That may well be due to my inexperience, rather than Chinglish manual.) I have determined that the lead screw is Imperial 10 threads per inch. I have found that the power feed handle on front left of the gearbox must be engaged and the power feed bar rotating before you can engage the "feed thread selector lever" on the right side of the gearbox to start the lead-screw rotating. I have engaged and disengaged the "half nut lever" on the front of the apron, and seen the carriage moved along by the rotating lead screw. I have a threading dial on the right side of the apron, which rotates when the half nuts are not engaged but stops turning when the half nuts are engaged. (I know there are rules that govern when the half nut lever can and can not be engaged depending on what number on the thread dial lines up with a pointer, but I'm pretty vague about that. I'm good with the cutting tool angle and position, I can read a thread gauge. My owners manual seems to have two charts for change gears, one chart having to do with travel speed of the carriage, the other having to do with the number of threads per inch I want to cut, but I can't for the life of me figure out how one relates to the other. If anybody has this particular lathe, and has successfully cut threads and knows how to read the change gear charts, I would sure appreciate some assistance.---Brian Rupnow


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## dsage (May 27, 2016)

Hi Brian:

To avoid a long winded explanation. (ha ha)
At the top of your chart (next to the CE) is a diagram of what gears are what, and which gears need to be installed in which positions. Z1,Z2,Z3 etc. 
First off I would see what you have in the various positions and stick with what you have. Don't make any changes for now. It's probably set for something reasonable. (but it could also be set for metric in which case only the metric thread charts will apply - see below)
At the bottom of your chart (above the warning hands) is a table of Threads per inch (titled as N/1). Looks like it goes from 8 in one corner to 56 in the other.
Find the column with the gear arrangement you have installed. It appears you will be able to cut three different threads based on one gear combination.
Apparently you have another selector that you haven't mentioned labelled A,B,C that will allow you to select one of the three possible threads.
(This seems pretty limiting. Usually a machine has a couple of other selectors that allow access to many many more threads with one set of gears. I've never had to juggle the actual gears on my machine.)

You said you already figured out the rest of the controls, so run your machine in back gear (dead slow). Mount a long bar between centers.
Put a pencil in the tool holder on center. Stay WAY back from the chuck.
Make some assumptions about what you are reading on the chart and run the machine to mark a thread line on the bar. (suggest starting with 8tpi) Measure the mark to get the threads per inch. You'll soon figure out whats going on. That's the safest way.

As for the threading dial. Rather than try to remember the rules about where you can can safely re-start the thread, I simply restart the thread at the same position on the dial every time. It takes a bit longer to wait for the dial to come around to the same number every time but I'm in no hurry and it gives some time to brush off the chips and apply some lube. For some reason my machine cuts crappy threads if I engage anywhere but the same place every time. (despite following "the rules") 
You might have to get a feel for the engagement of the start/stop handle. On my machine there is definite feel for when it engages properly. It sort of "sinks" into engagement. Sometimes it engages but it doesn't have that feel even though the numbers line up. Apparently it's a bit off and the threads are a bit rough even if you make a second pass at the same settings.

Start with that. Not being in front of the machine it's hard to tell exactly what's going on from limited information. I trust you'll be able to figure it out.

Sage


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## ShopShoe (May 27, 2016)

Brian,

I'll second the "..You'll figure it out."

When I was sorting this out on my lathe for the first  time, I made paper copies of the threading chart (see if you have it in whatever paperwork came with your lathe, or see if you can get it online.)  with paper copies, in hand, I highlighted the results I wanted and the gears I wanted as well. 

I never watched it until I had already learned the technique, but I can recommend mrpete222's video on external thread cutting.

On the resonance issue, I might suggest that perhaps attaching other materials (plywood, drywall, that stick-on insulation matting the car guys use, etc.) to large surfaces of sheet metal on the stand to dampen the vibrations could help. At the resonant frequencies, you might be able to feel vibrations with your fingers (it's that "mechanic's feel" thing) on parts of the stand. Or perhaps a mechanic's stethoscope with vibration-sensing contact would help locate the places you are looking for. What more can I say: You're a very skilled designer and you'll probably think of something.

Good Luck,

ShopShoe


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## sledjunk (May 27, 2016)

Brian

I have the CX706 (smaller brother) and am also a noob to using it and cutting threads.  One thing I noticed with mine.  When I changed the gears to get the thread I wanted (1.25mm) setting the backlash was tricky, but more importantly, there seemed to be a ringing when the lathe was powered up and running.  This was actually the gears making contact with the side of the adjacent gear on another shaft.  It is almost as if the gears do not have enough lateral clearance at the teeth or conversely are slightly too thin at the hub.  I might need to find some thin shims to go between the gears to prevent this.

Please let me know what you find with yours.


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## Jasonb (May 27, 2016)

I've replied to Brian elsewher but this may help Sledjunk.

Ringing. If you look very closly at the washers that go between the banjo and the pairs of gears you will see that the are different thicknesses. If you position them wrongly the sides of the gears will rub each other, get them right and they will offset the gears jus enough to clear each other.

Backlash. Make up the gear pairs loosly on teh studs and then starting with teh one on teh leadscrew and next one up cut a thin strip of photocopy paper and feed that into teh gears as you work them together. It will end up consertina shaped. lock the stud with teh paper in place then wind it out. Repeat for the other gears and finally the gear that meshes with te spindle gear as you pivot the banjo back into place. 

With luck these two things should give you quiet gears

J


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## Brian Rupnow (May 27, 2016)

In regards to the chuck vibration---I did as someone had suggested and put a piece of 3/4" round in the chuck, and drilled and countersunk it to accept the nose of a "live center" held in the tailstock. I set various and different preloads on the live-center to see what effect that would have on the spindle bearings. It made no difference. I still get the vibration at approximately 600 rpm. I conclude from that test that the spindle bearings are set properly and need no adjustment. If they had been loose, the application of different loads from the live center would have had some effect on the vibration.


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## bazmak (May 27, 2016)

H Brian,i had a similar problem with a similar chinese lathe I bought many years ago.To help alleviate the resonance problem I took a no of steps
If I recall my lathe was not bolted to the floor but sat on rubber waffle pads or isolation mounts on a substancial home made stand.Very stable.
I also fitted pieces of lead sheeting between the lathe feet and the stand
which were bolted.I also glued where possible sheets of insulation material
to the steel panels where I could Never fully solved the problem but did improve things.If I recall it was an early chinese lathe that weighed 300kg


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## Hopper (May 27, 2016)

If you have been using the lathe for a year or so, it is probably time you adjusted the headstock bearings - a very simple process as per the manual. The test you described with applying end thrust with the tailstock centre does not prove anything. It just moves any clearance in the bearings from the chuck-end bearing to the drive end bearing, which will still flap about.

Also, vibration could be coming from a loose drive belt - something else that will need adjusting after a year's use. And it could be coming from an out of balance drive pulley or out of balance change gears. All are easy enough to check.

The easiest workaround for flimsy tin cabinets is to make up some stands that go inside them with angle iron on each end so that one end bolts to the lathe base bolts inside the cabinet, the other end bolts to the concrete floor below. Two inch square tube works well for the stands, with 2 inch angle iron welded or bolted to each end. In effect, the stands support the lathe and the tin cabinet becomes an accessory merely for catching swarf and holding tools etc. 
I made up a pair of these for my old lathe a while back and the transformation was quite surprising. Much smoother running and much smoother finish at all speeds. With a bit of ingenuity they can be tailored to fit under the lathe inside the cabinet where they do not interfere with storage in the under-lathe cabinets.


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## 10K Pete (May 27, 2016)

I'm with Hopper on that test; not completely valid for the problem presented.

Pete


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## makila (May 28, 2016)

Hi Brian,
I have a similar lathe model to yours, but the slightly bigger version, but mostly the same. It,s been mentioned already but the head stock bearings might require some "pre load" after a years use. To do this there are two nuts on the back of the spindle that lock as a pair. 
By loosening the outer nut, this will unlock the inner nut, it's a sort of jam nut arrangement. Then very carefully see if the inner nut can be rotated towards the chuck, but, use a slightly more than hand tight torque so the bearings do not get damaged. Then tighten the two nuts together to lock them. I hope that might help any vibration. In an extreme case of head stock looseness, it might be possible to axially feel looseness.
The other tips on belt condition and looseness are also valid, a crack in the belt might cause a lumpy transmission that feels like an out of balance vibe.
The change gears are a real pain, every time I change mine for various threads, I have to muck about aligning the gears and using the supplied ridicules shim washers. I have no idea why these have not fallen out during use but if they are not set half right they make a terrible racket. In fact I have often thought of making a set of useable nuts and bolts for the change gears and if it's been done, then I hope this gets shared here.
The gears are fairly straight forward to work out, I always cut a thread on a test bit because it's easy to err with the gears and the lever's ABC setting.
Hope that helps
Steve


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## Brian Rupnow (May 28, 2016)

I tightened the locknut at the rear of the spindle a very small amount (after unlocking the two screws which are inset in to the face of the nut) and the vibration at the chuck has become noticeably less. Thank you to those who suggested it.---Brian


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## Brian Rupnow (May 28, 2016)

Some help if you would be so kind---Is it only the four gears supported by the bar in positions z1, z2, z3, and z4 that get changed or does the 80 tooth gear on the end of the spindle get changed also? The change gear chart I posted shows something called "H"---is that the plain yellow spacer shown in the picture?---or is it a different  spacer? I have a couple of spacers with my change gears, one that has an external key milled on it, and one with an internal keyway.  Could one of them be "H"? I want to cut an 10 tpi thread on a 3/4" shaft. My gear chart shows (I think) that position "z1" is occupied by "H", position "z2" is A 70 tooth gear, position "z3" is a 50 tooth gear, and position "z4" is a 40 tooth gear. It also tells me that position "L" which I believe to be the bottom shaft which extends thru into the gearcase as having an 80 tooth gear and also the mysterious "H". And I run the lathe at speed range "B' to do this. Am I anywhere close to being right?


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## Hopper (May 29, 2016)

Glad you smoothed those bearings down some. Try running the lathe at about 800 to 1,000 rpm for a half hour to warm things up then seat the bearing adjusting nut again. It might get rid of any remaining vibes. 

Looks like you have the changegears worked out correctly to me.
The gear L (presumably for Leadscrew) would remain 80T in this case. Although, it looks like you change it to 60 to cut 8tpi etc, according to the chart.
I think it a reasonable assumption that H is the spacer. I have been trying to work out the Chinglish for that, closest I can come is H for "place Holder" or just "Holder"? Any spacer that fits on there to stop the gear sliding sideways will do the job providing it allows the 80T gear to be keyed to the shaft without interference. On older lathes it is common to use another gear as a spacer here, but it would have to be a small one in this case.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

OKAY!!!---Great big hero cookie for me!!!  First I made a lot of sketches and took a few pictures of the original factory set up of my change gears so that when I get finished this threading exercise I can return my lathe to it's factory settings. Then I set up the change gears to cut a 10 tpi thread. This looks a lot scarier than it actually is, but it certainly means a lot of studying the manual and interpreting Chinglish. It isn't as much a matter of the information being wrong as it is a total lack of information. This is what it looked like with the change gears set up for 10 tpi.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

Next trick was to turn a relief area at the left hand end of what would become the threaded area to let the tool "run out" into the relieved area so I could release the threading lever and back out the tool. Also seen in this picture is my new "fishtail" setting gauge used to set the tool in the correction angular aspect to the part being threaded.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

And with the cross feed dial set at "0" when just touching the part, and the compound rest set at "0" when just touching the part, and the lathe running at 120 rpm, I engaged the threading lever on the apron every time the "1" on the thread dial lined up with the indicator mark. I advanced the compound rest in .010" increments for each successive cut until I reached the required depth of cut. (There are charts for this depth of cut, but I found that I had to cut a bit deeper to let the nut go on freely.)


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

This is my new handy dandy thread gauge confirming that I had indeed cut a 10 tpi thread. Normally this would be done after the first light cut was made on the threaded part so you could correct things if it showed that you weren't getting the tpi that you expected. I managed to screw something up with that picture, so you get this picture instead.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

And yes, I dug around in my nuts and bolts drawer until I found this rust, crusty old 3/4"-10 tpi hex nut. It fits quite well. I "snuck up on" the last two cuts, taking about .003: each time until the nut would screw on.


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

I know that this was a tiny bit "hokey", but only a tiny bit. I would probably grind my own hss cutter instead of using the carbide, as I can get a much cleaner, better defined cut with hss. Secondly, the "part" would normally be made from steel rather than aluminum if it was for a "real job".  However--I was only attempting to go thru all the motions and set-ups required to cut a thread. Everything works, and seems to work very well. It is a bit of a steep learning curve, but there is a lot of information "out there", and the biggest challenge really is learning how to interpret the change gear chart. Thank you to everyone on the forums who helped me.  I'm not sure I will ever cut more threads. For what I do, taps and dies work quite sufficiently. I just wanted to be able to say that I have cut a thread on my lathe successfully, and now I have.----Brian


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## bazmak (May 29, 2016)

Hi Brian,i agree with all you say.I posted a thread on making a collet chuck for the lathe.Sorted the gears out,and turned the chuck by hand to cut
a 40mm x1 thread successfully.Been there and done that as you say
but for 99% of the time taps and dies are sufficient for what we do
I now know/remember how to cut threads on the lathe,its been many years
If needs arise again I know I can do it


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## Brian Rupnow (May 29, 2016)

Hi Baz--It's nice to hear from you. I've always wanted to be able to say "Why yes, I can thread something on my lathe !!". I seriously doubt that it is something I will ever need to do again, but like many things, I wanted to do it at least once correctly, make a bunch of notes and take pictures of it in case I ever need to do it again, and then move on. I like the challenge, and it keeps me engaged with life. I love learning new stuff. --And if my posts help somebody who is struggling to do the same thing, then it makes it even better.---Brian


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## Hopper (May 29, 2016)

Congratulations! Looks like the job's a good 'un.
For longer threading jobs, screwcutting will give a more consistent job than using a die, which can wander about the place as it screws on and you end up with a thread that looks like a garden worm.
A good way to do it is to screwcut the longer threads and finish off the last few thou with a die. Quick and easy way to get a straight well finished thread.


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## ShopShoe (May 30, 2016)

You've got it. Isn't it satisfying to single-point thread?

I really enjoy all of your posts as you share what you are experiencing (both triumphs and frustrations) as well as what you make.

Keep 'em coming.

--ShopShoe


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## dsage (May 30, 2016)

Congrats:

You didn't mention. But I guess you had your compound set over to 29-1/2 degrees? Since you said you used the compound to in-feed?
 Most times I don't bother using the compound. It's too much trouble to set to 29-1/2 deg. So I just use the cross slide to in-feed. Of course this means the thread is being cut on both sides of the cutter but if you take light cuts with sufficient lube the thread comes out fine. You also get a true reading of the in-feed rather than some complicated mathematical value based on the 29-1/2 degrees.

Sage


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## Brian Rupnow (May 30, 2016)

I have watched YouTube video's of it being done both ways. they both seem to work equally well.---Brian


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## sledjunk (May 30, 2016)

Jasonb said:


> I've replied to Brian elsewher but this may help Sledjunk.
> 
> Ringing. If you look very closly at the washers that go between the banjo and the pairs of gears you will see that the are different thicknesses. If you position them wrongly the sides of the gears will rub each other, get them right and they will offset the gears jus enough to clear each other.
> 
> ...


Thanks JasonB,  I hadn't noticed the differences in the washers and the manual leaves a lot to be desired in this area.  I did learn the paper trick but it was trial and error to find the correct sequence.  Thanks for explaining that.  I have not tried changing the gears again but will certainly pay attention to the washer thickness.

Thanks again.


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## dsage (May 30, 2016)

Brian:

Another small point (no pun intended). You should make yourself a sharp pointed 60deg HSS tool (or see below). A standard carbide turning insert is too round at the point. You (sort of) got away with it for the coarse thread you turned but it wouldn't be any good for anything finer. Being that you turned until an existing nut fit you may have actually cut deeper than necessary to make room for the nut to fit in the rounded bottom threads.
Vardex make a nice "non topping" carbide threading insert. (Available at KBC tools). They work really well on all materials.

Just something to keep in mind if you should ever find yourself turning threads again.

Sage


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

I am bored, literally, out of my skull!!! What to do?,  What to do?---Well, when there is absolutely nothing to amuse me, I invent something. My lathe has a carriage lock on it, which works very fine, thank you. It is the socket head capscrew that the black arrow points at. It is tightened and loosened with an Allen wrench to lock and unlock the carriage.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

The problem is, that 80% of the time when I want to lock it, the gib screw in the side of the cross-slide is setting directly over the top of the lock screw, preventing me from getting an Allen wrench into it.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

I have checked, and a shorter gib screw won't solve the problem. Even if I replaced the socket head cap on the cross slide with a set screw, there is no room for a locknut to make it hold position without fouling the carriage lock screw.---However---I have checked with my feeler gauges, and I have about 0.188 clearance in there to get a wrench in---just not enough to get a wrench with a stub of Allen wrench attached to it.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

If I was clever enough to machine a piece of thicker material so that it had the required size of Allen head machined right on the face of it, and thread the center of the lock bolt #8-32, and use a #8-32 flat head capscrew to hold the wrench in place, then I could permanently attach the wrench and leave it in place, and the bolt in the side of the cross slide would pass over top of it with no interference. An added benefit would be that I can "clock" the lock screw into a position that would best suit the "stick out" portion of the handle. The hexagon pocket in th ehead of the lock screw gives me 6 positions to choose from. Torque is transferred from the handle to the lockscrew via the machined on "hex" and the flat head capscrew just holds the handle in place.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

And yes, I could replace the lockbolt with a hex head bolt and then use an open end wrench to tighten/loosen it, but if I do it this way, the handle becomes a permanent part of the carriage, and I don't have to search for a wrench every time I want to lock it.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

Using the time honoured method of "Use what ya got/ do it whatever way is easiest" I decided to make the wrench in two pieces. (That's why God made mig welders, isn't it?) I set up a piece of 5/8" mild steel round stock in the mill on my rotary table, drilled a clearance hole for a #8 screw, and whittled out a hex shape to fit the carriage lock bolt.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 22, 2016)

And---There we have it. A funky little set up for a full penetration mig weld, and the handle ground smooth and bolted in place. Works like a charm, the cross feed gib bolts clear it, and I don't have to go searching for a wrench when I want to lock the carriage.


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## dsage (Jun 23, 2016)

Clever solution..
I don't have the interference problem between the two screws but I also require  a wrench to tighten my carriage lock.
 I wish I could put a handle on mine like that but the carriage lock screw has to be undone at least a turn or whatever it's tightening below tends to catch and drag when I wind the carriage along.

Nice job.

Sage


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 9, 2017)

Today I ordered a 2 axis magnetic scale DRO set-up from Dro-Pro in California. I will be adding the DRO set-up to this lathe, and documenting the process. Dro-Pro has an excellent set of "how to" videos on doing this, and I watched all four of them yesterday. The only tricky thing I can see is that on my lathe carriage the gib adjusting and lock screws are on the surface that the scale mounts to in the Dro-Pro video. I will have to get creative with some stand-offs I guess.--Stay tuned---


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## petertha (Jan 10, 2017)

I went through similar pros & cons of the cross slide Y-axis. I ended up putting the scale on the left side vs. right side of cross slide. 

Positives:
- utilized the 2 existing tapped bolt in carriage casting intended for the travelling steady & saved me drilling those which was otherwise going to be quite awkward
- preserved the right side for (in my case) carriage lock bolt thumbscrew which I always use & would be PITA to relocate so consider that too (my gib adjustment is at the ends of the strip vs. your setscrews)

Negatives:
- scale is adjacent to work so somewhat exposed to swarf etc.(but has not been an issue with protective angle guard installed)
- if I need to use travelling steady, DRO must be removed. I use the steady very rarely if at all, but your mileage may vary

I love my DRO!


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 11, 2017)

Petertha--I find your post very interesting. I very seldom have a use for the travelling steady rest (in fact I have never used it.) The video from Dro-Pro discourages mounting the cross-slide DRO on the chuck side, but on my lathe it would certainly be a lot more convenient. There is also the issue of getting the tailstock chuck in close to drill a short piece held in the headstock chuck. My tailstock will slide in right up to the gib screws on the cross slide, which lets me drill holes without having the tailstock ram cranked out a mile to reach where it has to. If I put the DRO on the same side as the gib screws, I will lose that ability. How long have you had your DRO mounted on the chuck side and have you used the lathe long enough to see any other disadvantages to mounting the DRO there?---Brian


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## petertha (Jan 12, 2017)

Brian, I've had this installed for 4-5 years so I'm confident its going to stay put. Attaching pics to give you some perspective. We don't have the same lathe or DRO encoders but hopefully you can interpolate. I guess there's always that risk you could damage encoder when exposed to chuck business side. I don't run flood coolant but I do occasional dirty stuff (cast iron & toolpost grinding). Generally I'm pretty anal about cleanliness & bed protection though. It might be worth soliciting a more few opinions specific to your encoder type (ie. maybe being less forgiving to swarf & debris). Mine are Newall which are sealed CF rods with steel balls inside as opposed to glass scales or other systems out there. That might be a factor. I mounted a simple aluminum L channel protector so its well covered. I peek in there once in a while & vacuum but it stays essentially clean. 

Your tailstock comment is a valid one me thinks. My cross slide/tailstock casting shape might be just a bit more tolerant, but I could see that being an issue especially if its possible for tailstock to physically contact encoder by too far left. Basically I dry assembled components with double stick tape or wood mockups & came to the conclusion this was worth a shot. Worst case scenario I had 2 small redundant holes in my cross slide. I could have drilled the lower casting member with a hand drill but I wasn't cherishing the thought. The bigger headache was relocating my cross slide lock screw because it has to bear against the gib strip which is on tailstock side. 

BTW, I think free-hand drilling & tapping like the video might be asking for trouble. I made some simple bushing type drill guides just temporarily tacked with double stick tape or epoxy.


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## petertha (Jan 12, 2017)

If I mounted encoder on right side of cross slide this is what I was looking at. Red=encoder, Orange=bracket mount, 1=cross slide lock screw likely interference (contacts gib strip on this side) 2=carriage lock screw likely interference.


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## Blogwitch (Jan 12, 2017)

Peter,

I had the same problem with my lathe, the glass scale covered up the gib tightening screw (tapered gibs so no problem with adjusting those).

This is how I got around the problem when I looked at fitting the scale on the forwards face and realised it was very liable to be damage by something swinging around in the chuck.

It took hardly any time at all.

http://chestermachinetools.forumchitchat.com/post/locking-up-my-cross-slide-7284193?pid=1286083315

I also fitted the one on my top slide the opposite to yours, mine is on the outside, to stop fouling by the tailstock, but I still have to do the same to that.







John


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## petertha (Jan 12, 2017)

John, it was your post that inspired me to similarly retrofit my lock screws with the tapered plug & ball bearing assembly. First on lathe, then same fix on the mill XY travels. Nothing like a DRO to illustrate unwanted movement that one can impart to tool setting just trying to lock it down. 

Anyway, I mulled over moving the lock screw to chuck side too. It came down to a few soft issues I was (personally) less comfortable with, maybe more out of naivety at the time:

- I've been in the habit of locking carriage with my right hand on pretty much every lateral pass, even if only lightly on roughing passes. The thought of changing my habits & sticking my left hand in under the powered/moving chuck every pass, especially on short stock pieces with less room, just seemed like one of those 'sooner or later' type safety things.

- I wasn't clear if [left side scenario] pushing the set screw wedge against the dovetail was going to be as effective holding lock as [stock right side scenario] pushing the set screw against the gib strip which then maybe imparts pressure along a broader dovetail contact area? I suspect now probably no difference. 

I think this is one of those choose what's best for you solutions, but at least now Brain has some more points to ponder.

Just curious, on big boy industrial lathes, do they lock the cross slide in this same set screw manner?


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 12, 2017)

The first picture here, shows the side of my cross-slide which is closest to the chuck. It is perfectly "clear" with the exception of two tapped holes, which are meant for the travelling steady-rest, which I never use. The second picture shows the side facing my tailstock, and it is very cluttered up with gib adjusting bolts and a cross-slide lock bolt. Although Dro-Pro strongly suggests mounting the cross-slide DRO and read head to the tailstock side of the cross-slide in their "how to mount scales" video, it would be pretty complicated for me to do so. Perertha has said that on his lathe which is similar to mine, he mounted the DRO to the side facing the chuck, and utilized the tapped holes as mounting holes for the read head bracket. This makes a great deal of sense to me. I don't use flood coolant on my lathe, just squirt on cutting oil or WD40 for turning aluminum. the DRO has a protective angle guard that covers it and the read-head.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 12, 2017)

Another good reason for mounting my DRO to the side of the cross-slide closest to the chuck is shown here, although it is somewhat hard to see. When I want to get my tailstock as close as possible to the main lathe chuck for drilling a hole in something without having the tailstock ram extended out a mile, the tailstock will nestle right in tight to the gib lock screw. If I hung the DRO off that side, I wouldn't be able to do that anymore.


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## Blogwitch (Jan 13, 2017)

There are so many ways to fit things to your machinery, all you can do is give it a good dose of looking at, even more thought, then go for it. Hopefully it will all work out for you in the long run.

I fitted mine a few years ago, and as luck would have it, most of it worked out perfectly OK. The only failure was my first fitting of the tailstock DRO, which with a combination of the wrong material used for the sliding rail and lack of protection against swarf caused a major rethink, but that has now all been solved.

Even people with exactly the same machines can end up doing things differently. All we can do is give maybe a bit of logical advice in the hope that it helps.


John


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 15, 2017)

Some slow and very cautious disassembly shows that yes, the topslide can be easily removed, in order to drill and tap holes in the side of it to mount the magnetic DRO scale on. I can set it up in my milling vice for the drilling and tapping operation, which makes me feel much better than trying to drill and tap it in place. I am always very cautious about disassembling something like this, in case you disassemble something and hear that horrible "clunk-rattle" sound of something coming apart and falling down into the guts of things, making it necessary to disassemble the entire lathe to retrieve the part and re-assemble things. I have pretty well determined that I am going to mount my scale on the chuck side of the cross-slide because of the gib screws and lock bolt being in the way of mounting the scale on the tailstock side. I have researched this extensively, and I see that it is not uncommon to mount the scale on the chuck side, as many lathes have the gib screws and lock screws on the tailstock side, same as mine. As long as a good protection guard is installed over the scale, it will be fine. I just have to remember that if I work in close to the chuck, to check for jaw clearance from the guard.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 15, 2017)

As a point of interest---That brass square nut that the cross-slide lead-screw goes thru has a nifty little adjustment to adjust backlash. You don't see it in the picture, but here is a 3D model of the nut. It has a split part way thru from the bottom, and two small socket head capscrews that when tightened squeeze the slot shut a little bit and tighten up the nut on the leadscrew, thus getting rid of any backlash. This same method could be use on pretty well any nut which is moved by a lead screw.


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## petertha (Jan 15, 2017)

So is red your carriage lock screw & green are your gib adjustment screws, or?


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 15, 2017)

Yes Petertha, you have it correct.---Brian


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## makila (Jan 15, 2017)

Hi Brian,

I have the same cross slide assembly as yours and have often wondered whether the slide could be put on facing the other way thus having the gib screws on the chuck side along with the gib strip. Do you think that could be possible? 
This way would allow the attachment of the DRO scale on the tailstock side but I have not dis assembled anything yet to check this out. Is the screw nut in the centre to allow for a simple reversal. 
The cross slide base looks symetrical from your pictures but I have not researched this at all.

Cheers
Steve


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 15, 2017)

Makila--That is a very clever idea, and at first glance, it looks like it would be possible.--But--The counterbored hole in the center of the cross-slide which attaches the cross-slide to the brass travelling nut is not centered. Probably if a new counterbored hole was drilled, the cross-slide could be reversed. Only problem then remaining is that the scale mounted closest to the tailstock would then cover up the carriage lock bolt (which I have a handle attached to in the picture).


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 17, 2017)

And so it begins. My dro set is in transit somewhere between Canada customs and my house, so I've been notified. I have watched two dozen videos of DRO installations on many different kinds of lathes to educate myself. A common theme on the installations I like has the armored connector cables from the two read heads passing thru a bushing in the pan underneath the lathe and going up behind the splash guard to the digital readout. This bushing has a flange and a gasket, and is high enough to keep any kind of coolant from dripping thru the hole in the pan and onto the floor. As near as I am able to tell, this bushing is not supplied with the kit I bought from Dro-Pros. No problem!!--a bit of rummaging around in my scrap bin yielded a piece of steel pipe approximately 1.4" inside diameter, with a 1/8" wall, and a 3" diameter piece of 3/16" plate. A bit of work with the mig welder on the side that doesn't show, and a bit of clean-up time in the lathe yields a nice flanged bushing to route my cables thru. Even if a bushing does show up with the kit, at least this has amused me for a couple of hours. The flange is cropped on one side so it can snuggle up tight to the backsplash on the back of the lathe.


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## bazmak (Jan 17, 2017)

I am looking to fit a 3 axis DRO to my mill.After the chinese new year
of course,any advise would be helpful Brian.Will Try a separate thread rather than hijack yours Regards Barry


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 17, 2017)

bazmak said:


> I am looking to fit a 3 axis DRO to my mill.After the chinese new year
> of course,any advise would be helpful Brian.Will Try a separate thread rather than hijack yours Regards Barry


Bazmak--I showed the installation of a dro on my mill in this thread.---Brian
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=24632&highlight=cx601


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## petertha (Jan 17, 2017)

Brian I hope your cables glide through that hole ok. If they are anything like mine, they have a tendency to kind of get hung up on the hole lip depending on the carriage position. Not a good thing if it snags & you are power feeding. Must be a function of my raised spiral metal wind & their own weight etc.. Hopefully yours are smoother. I mimicked it with a hole in a plate clamped to my chip tray as I'm having to figure out a backsplash. Perhaps it wants something smoothened... like a metal or nylon Tim Hortons donut  Maybe that's why I see many installations where they just drape the cables over the top ledge of backsplash, but maybe they didn't want to cut a hole or fluid issue as you mentioned. 

On another note, I wanted to mention there are some neat follower rest ideas out in web land I've stumbled across that don't rely on the main carriage casting/holes. Maybe not as robust but here is one example to get you thinking (_HSM Shop Made Tools - 2013_)


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## Blogwitch (Jan 18, 2017)

You can see in this shot how my cables go over the top of the splashback.

They were very carefully measured over the whole range of movement of all four cables so that they didn't drag along the bottom onto the drip tray, so not dragging in the swarf produced by the machine. They were then clipped to the top of the splashback with tight fitting nylon P-clips.






Brian, I can now see why you had to mount your read head along the front rather than the rear, you have a lot of screws sticking out of the back of your cross slide whereas mine doesn't have those as I have tapered gibs on my machine.


John


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 18, 2017)

My DRO set-up arrived today, and I have opened the boxes and inspected the components, and everything seems to have survived the shipping okay. After watching all of the installation videos, it seems that my first challenge is going to be that my lathes cross slide body is only 10 5/8" long, with a travel of 6 3/8". According to the instructions on cutting the scale to length, I'm going to end up with the scale being 11 5/8" total length to accommodate that 6 3/8" travel. I will be doing a lot of thinking before I make that cut, so stay tuned.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 18, 2017)

Initial layout to position the cross slide scale and read head. The tapped holes in the saddle are there allready, and I plan on using them to mount the read head bracket. They can not be moved, so I start with them. The center to center on the read head bracket mounting slots is almost but not quite the same as the holes in the saddle, and they are a bit undersize for the M8 socket head capscrews that fit the tapped holes in the saddle. A bit of creative milling moves and enlarges the slots, and Bingo, the bracket is mounted on the tapped bolts in the saddle. The center of the read head bracket must line up with the center of travel on the scale. The piece of wood attached to the side of the cross-slide with double edged tape represents the total length of the scale, and the cross-hatched areas at each end of the wood is the area which must always remain clear of the end of the read head. This layout tells me that  if I cut the scale to give an overall length of 11 5/8" and mount it 3/16" in from the end of the cross slide closest to the operator, that  when I fully advance or retract the cross slide, the read head isn't going to encroach on the cross hatched area. The end of the scale nearest to the operator can be attached to the cross-slide with a drilled and tapped hole. The far end which is currently hanging out beyond the end of the cross-slide will probably require that I make up a bracket supported from the end of the cross-slide to accept the bolt at the far end. Fortunately, it is easy to remove my cross-slide completely from the lathe and set it up in the milling machine for drilling the required holes. I will then move it to my shop vice to tap the holes as required for mounting the scale.  There will be more creative milling required on that read head bracket to position it correctly in respect to the scale.


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## Ghosty (Jan 18, 2017)

Brian,
I like the use of the piece of wood, get it centred and the length before even looking at cutting the scale to the correct length.
I would love to put DRO's on my lathe and mill, but my budget for the next couple of years prevent that.

Cheers
Andrew


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## petertha (Jan 18, 2017)

I found some old pics I had stashed in a document. Some potential ideas to float around as you are working out a plan.

- I suspect you will find that your casting surfaces will rarely give you a perfect datum to mount a plate or fixture that will align perfectly to what will be the final stage = tweaking the encoder head & scales into alignment with a dial indicator. Yes you can shim and that may still be required in certain areas. But if you can make some mounting fixtures that will allow it to be screwed into the casting 'however it lands' but then facilitate independent adjustment in X,Y,Z direction you will find the whole tuning in process goes smoother. Plus in the event you have to remove DRO (count on it) it will give you a way to tweak it back into position without repeating the rigamarole. So in that regard, have a look at the Newall end post (the black thingy at the end of the encoder rod). I know your scales are different but what I'm trying to illustrate is its a simple post + hole + clamp slit combination that facilitates adjustment in 3 different dimensions. Everything uses 1/4-20 screws. And even the outboard facing ones are tapped which gives you something to mount covers to. (Yours might be different in this regard).

- check that you don't inadvertently cover up your lubrication nipples or have a contingency plan

- re the bracket mounted on saddle in existing holes, I had this idea which was a backup plan never invoked. Instead of just bolting on the DRO plate & kissing the travelling steady goodbye forever, I envisioned making special bolts with extended hex heads & similarly tapped on the hex ends. The idea is you still have the same bolt hole pattern exposed to mount the travelling steady if regquired. Just a thought.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm not sure where the day went, but it has whizzed by quickly. I only made one little bracket (the green one), fitted it, and drilled and tapped the cross-slide for the magnetic scale. In order to cover the full range of cross slide travel, the scale ended up being about 3/4" longer than the cross slide. In order to center the scale in relation to the read head (which is bolted to the saddle using the tapped holes originally intended for the follow rest) the scale had to set in from the front of the cross-slide 3/16" and extend out past the back of the cross slide by about 1". The front attachment point was a simple tapped hole in the cross slide. The other end required the green bracket to pick up the hole in the other end of the scale. This meant tapping two holes in the far end of the cross slide. It just fit into my milling vice with about 1/2" spare room between the top of the cross slide and the tip of a the tap drill which was used for the two #8 screws in the back end. I have no logical reason why it took the entire day to get this scale installed, but it did. Tomorrow I will go about milling the top of the read head bracket to get it low enough that the read head sets in the correct relationship to be centered on the scale vertically.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 20, 2017)

The read head bracket has been cut down to the correct size, and the read head installed. The scale has been checked for level and parallelity in two plains, and a very temporary hook up to the display shows that the numbers are indeed going up or down as I move the cross slide. That is a big plus for me. Now I will mount the swarf guard for the X axis (cross slide) and then move on to the z axis scale and read head mounting.


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## petertha (Jan 20, 2017)

Just for curiosity, how does your DRO measurement compare to winding your cross slide windings? And which one will you believe?  (I'm joking). Does your DRO box have provision for compensation, or how will you independently verify displacement?

I've always found it interesting that on a lathe X=cross feed and Z=longitudinal. Seems counterintuitive to what we were taught in elementary school. Then on a mill its back to X=left/right Y=fore/after and Z=up/down. Go figure. I've probably been posting incorrectly from the get-go but I ain't going back to edit them now!


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 20, 2017)

And finally, here we are with the swarf guard in place. That pretty well finishes the install of the cross slide DRO. I may have to drill and tap somewhere to put a cable restraint in place, but I will leave that for later. The next job will be the Z axis slide which fits to the back of the lathe. That one is going to be a pain, because I have my lathe bracketed to the wall, and all the bracketing and backsplash have to come off and the lathe has to be moved out far enough from the wall to let me in behind it to work comfortably


.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 20, 2017)

Petertha--I don't know if the dro display has provision for compensation or not. I'm too busy installing scales and read heads to worry about that right now.---Brian


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## petertha (Jan 20, 2017)

Ah, OK. The thing is, if its not reading correctly for whatever alignment reason, you might be undoing some of that fine work to tweak things. But I understand you're probably focused on getting it installed now & will tune it in later.

Yeah, I know the feeling of crawling around a lathe parked close to a wall. Fortunately I was able to squeeze in there. If I ever built another lathe stand I'd make provisions for some jack wheels. Anyway, if you do end up repositioning lathe, remember to go back & re-check levelling (more correctly called twist). It doesn't take much of a difference & you are cutting tapers.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 20, 2017)

The 3 brackets for mounting the read head on the Z axis are shown here, unmodified. I had to drill and tap two 1/4"-20 holes in the saddle to mount the top block. You will see that I have partially covered the rectangular hole in the saddle dovetail. It's alright--nothing comes out thru that hole. I have had the topslide to the full extent of it's travel both directions, and nothing has to come out thru that hole. These brackets hold the read head, which in turn determines where the scale gets mounted. As you can see, I am going to have to modify the slotted piece which hangs from the block attached to the saddle.  I will cut it off just below the slots and add two shorter slots below where it is cut off. This will keep it from sticking up above the block attached to the saddle, and will raise the read head a couple of inches. I don't want the scale to be right down at the bottom of the lathe, where all the swarf and chips end up.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 20, 2017)

The Z axis read head brackets have been modified and bolted in place. I have a stack of 1 2 3 blocks and parallels in place at each end of the lathe to temporarily support the scale in place. I can use one of the stand-off scale supports that came in the kit, but I have to fabricate one that is a bit thicker for the near end of the lathe. This is not rocket science, nor is it too physically demanding, but tonight my old arse is dragging!! I'm done for today. Hopefully tomorrow I will get the scale mounted and start looking for the best place to mount the display panel.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 21, 2017)

The new thicker mounting plate for the near end is finished and the scale has been mounted. There is a raised boss where the bracket is mounted at the far end of the lathe that doesn't show up well in the picture, and that was why I had to make the near end bracket thicker. All of my drilling and tapping is finished to mount all of my brackets, and I'm glad that is over with. I don't break taps all that often, but there is still a high pucker factor involved when drilling and tapping somethin "free-hand". now I have to use my test dial indicator and confirm that the scale is parallel in two planes to the rear "way" of the lathe. If it isn't, there are slots in most of the bracket connections and jack screws in each mounting pad to get them level and "true" to each other.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 21, 2017)

Z axis is all mounted and dialed in. Numbers on display go up or down with carriage travel from end to end. I'm going to grab some lunch and then mount the z axis swarf guard.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 21, 2017)

I'm getting right down to the wire here. The rear swarf guard is installed. I wish I knew how well my little pipe and flange weldment was going to work for a pass-thru in the pan under my lathe. I guess I can go ahead and install it, and if it doesn't work well I can festoon the cables some other way. I hate the thought of a whole snarl of cables just laying in the pan of the lathe. That is just asking for trouble.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 21, 2017)

So, after another days slugging, the scales, swarf guards, and read heads are finished. The little "pass thru" that I made is gasketed, siliconed, and mounted to the lathe pan, and the cables routed thru it. I got lucky on that one---I built the "pass thru" before I had the cables that run thru it. Luckily, the end connection on the cables  fitted thru it okay. The display is mounted, and I "think" that everything is going to fit when I move the lathe back into position. I may even be able to re-use my sheet metal splash guard that goes on the wall above the lathe backsplash, because the cables are routed around the end of the lathe and up to the display. I have to put some P clamps on the cables to take any strain off the point where they attach to the read-heads. I may have to do a little creative carving on the lathe backsplash before it can be re-installed---I'm not sure yet. Hopefully, tomorrow will finish this up.


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## larrydoucet1946 (Jan 21, 2017)

Brian Rupnow said:


> I'm getting right down to the wire here. The rear swarf guard is installed. I wish I knew how well my little pipe and flange weldment was going to work for a pass-thru in the pan under my lathe. I guess I can go ahead and install it, and if it doesn't work well I can festoon the cables some other way. I hate the thought of a whole snarl of cables just laying in the pan of the lathe. That is just asking for trouble.





I got the I believe 12x24 from busy Bee I bought it for a hobby second hand but in very good condition 1 horse power gives all the power you need it's got two gear shift. I didn't know much about lathes but I like it,I already had the milling machine I order some tooling from China Hong Kong very cheap and good stuff but sometimes hard to get it gets lost in the mail easy. I get these on eBay through PayPal so I don't have to worry. I'm going to email the buyer if I can't get it insure by air mail and a tracking number,I'm from Nova Scotia.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 22, 2017)

There is one "dirty little secret" involved with cutting these scales to a shorter length. The end caps are attached to the aluminum scale extrusion with 3MM diameter bolts. When you shorten the scale, you don't have to drill and tap new holes because the "hole" is actually a formed slot in the extrusion that is open on one side.---all you have to do is run a 3 mm tap down the "hole" and put in new threads.--and here is the rub---I bought a brand new tap, cut the cross slide scale to length, and carefully (very carefully) ran the tap down full depth of the threads on the tap, reversing the tap every turn to break the chip. To break a tap off in the end of the scale would be a disaster!!--And then--When I went to remove the tap, it only backed out about 1/4 of a turn and froze. I could turn it back and forth about 1/4 turn, but there was no way in Hell it was coming out of there without breaking the tap. Oh No--I've screwed up the very first thing I went to do on this installation!! But wait---It's a slot, isn't it. So, get a flat bladed screwdriver, pry the slot open "just a little bit" down at the end of the tap, which I can plainly see thru the open side of the slot. A bit of lubricating oil, a short prayer to the DRO gods, some very careful back and forth on the tap handle, and out came the tap. Ahhhhh---Big sigh of relief. This so un-nerved me that I didn't cut the Z axis scale. The Z axis scale is about 1 1/2" too long, but I wasn't going to test my luck again. I am going have to cut a pocket into the lathe backsplash to accommodate this "too long" scale on the end nearest to the headstock. I can patch up around the point where the "too long" scale interferes and requires some minor trimming of the backsplash, but no way do I want to have to buy a replacement scale because I broke a tap off in the end of it.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 22, 2017)

So, after $1240 Canadian, and 3 1/2 days of what seemed like damned hard work, everything is back to normal. Everything fits and is in the same position it was when I started. I opted to buy the 5um read heads for both axis. I could have paid $200 Canadian funds more and got the 1 um read head for the cross slide, but for a hobby lathe I didn't think it was worth it. I haven't used the lathe yet, just ran the cross slide and the carriage and watched the numbers scroll up and down on the display. I'm whipped, and don't plan anything more for today.--Hope you enjoyed following along.---Brian


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## Blogwitch (Jan 22, 2017)

If you have got the read heads and gibs set up perfectly, 5um will display down to 2/10ths anyway very accurately.

Very few people work to that tolerance.

John


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## petertha (Jan 22, 2017)

Looks good. Welcome to Club DRO. You'll love it.


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## bazmak (Jan 23, 2017)

2/10ths is bearing manufacturers tolerance,and then ambient air temp
variations becomes a problem.Dont worry too much enjoyed your excerlent post Brian


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## RonGinger (Jan 23, 2017)

When I ordered my DRO from DROPROs they were out of stock on the long scale I needed, so they offered me the higher res scale. I figured sure, more accuracy is better so I was happy. After using it for a few years I wish I had not. The last 2 digits are just fast blinking lights- the slightest movement anywhere and they change. I often think about covering them with tape so they dont distract me.

With the hobby class  machines thinking you can measure  out to 5 decimal places is plain foolish. Match your scales to your machine and dont look for more precision than is realistic.


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## petertha (Jan 26, 2017)

I always assumed the measurement resolution (scale/encoder) and display resolution were 2 different things. On my box (different brand) I can choose to display 0.00X" on one axis and 0.000X" on another if I don't want to see more. I agree, long digits it can be distracting (and very likely outside the real world achievable scope of hobby level machines & tooling anyway).


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## dsage (Jan 27, 2017)

The fact is (after designing and building my own readout), the Chinese scales (also used in cheap calipers) actually have a bogus resolution of .0002 which means in software you have to derive .0005 (half thou) for the display. But, if you look at the data from the scale as it sits quietly on the bench it bobbles back and forth two tenths from 4 to 6 tenths. There is no real half thou data. So in software you have to display 0 when it's 4 and 5 when it's 6. So even the half thou reading on most readouts is suspect and that's why even it can come and go from 0 to 5. To display the 2 tenths directly is hopeless with the cheap Chinese scales they bobble so much. It may be different for glass scales and expensive calipers. Most of them have a different data format.

Sage


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 29, 2017)

One last little kick at the can here before I finish the DRO install. After making a few cuts with my lathe, I could see that a lot of the chips and cutting oil were going to fall right on top of the scale cover. This doesn't alarm me. What did alarm me a little was that much of this chips and coolant fell behind the vertical ridge on the scale cover and landed on top of the topslide. So--Today I removed the compound rest and ran a good bead of silicone sealant right down the joint between the back of the scale guard and the topslide. (right where the point of the pencil is)  Fortunately there is a fairly large chamfer (about 0.080") on the sides of the topslide, so after wiping everything dry of oil and cleaning it with some laquer thinners, a good fillet of silicone filled the chamfer in completely. Now I won't have to be worried about cutting oil and metal shavings and possibly iron dust finding their way down to the scale and read head.


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## Brian Rupnow (Mar 29, 2017)

I have been using the DRO set-up on my lathe for a few months now, and it's absolutely wonderful. Even though they are an expensive brute of a thing, they are well worth the money paid for them. They do however, show up some things that I wasn't really aware of. I like to have the gibs on my cross slide free enough that it lets me move the cross slide with very little effort. With the DRO in place and operating, it soon became clear that when taking a cut parallel to the axis of the mill, the cross slide would "back up" of it's own accord from whatever I had it initially set at. Okay, that is easily enough fixed by locking the cross slide before taking a cut each time. This is a pain, and the bolt which locks the cross slide in place is not all that convenient to get at with a hex wrench. Way back on posts 93 thru 96 I showed the lock handle I had made up for the carriage lock. It works great, and although it takes a bit of fitting to get the required clearances looked after, the handle is much more convenient than grabbing a wrench each time to lock the carriage in place. I wanted a similar hand operated lock for the cross slide, and after a mornings farting around I have one. Basically, I silver soldered an extension onto the head of the cross slide lock bolt (the only one of the gib screws that doesn't have a locknut). Of course, it falls right into the area where the carriage lock handle is, so there is a bit of measuring and "try it and see if it clears" engineering involved there, but it works and it clears the top of the carriage lock lever. Now I can tighten it with my fingers tight enough that the cross slide doesn't move when I'm taking a longitudinal cut under power.


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## petertha (Mar 29, 2017)

I was taught to get in the habit of tightening the cross slide with every longitudinal pass like under power feed. It seems like an extra thing to do, especially when roughing where you are less concerned with dimensions. But I think what you call 'backing up' is force exerted directly on the cross slide lead screw & anti-backlash nut assembly - probably the two 2 components you want to minimize wear & tear. Especially under heavier cuts. Other benefits are surface finish & holding dimension.

I'm intrigued by where your carriage lock bolt (extension) enters the cross slide. Don't they all just contact the gib strip in the same way? In other words, couldn't you just use the next hole down the line? My lock is more centered in the lathe so I just replaced the cheesy wing nut with a short-ish knurled knob which mitigated a longer extension. But I have a different gib adjusting system with adjusters on either end.

Anyway, this is what we chatted about before. Personally I would rather be doing this tightening on the RHS of carriage vs. the LHS adjacent to the spinning chuck. But that's just me


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## petertha (Mar 29, 2017)

BTW, I'm not sure if your lathe is like mine but I happened to have the carriage off mine right now on another issue. 

The carriage lock clamp bolt is a bit of bad engineering IMO. There is very little contact area of the foot to the lathe rails. That's an irritation I could live with. But it has the habit of losing the 'set' & now I know why. In certain positions there is nothing preventing the foot from spinning. So I'm going to make a rectangular block with slight clearance offsets. It will have much more contact area & be a positive clamp down with top nut or handle.


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## Brian Rupnow (Mar 29, 2017)

Petertha--you are absolutely right, both in your assumption that the carriage is backing up because of pressure on the cross slide lead screw and that any one of the gib screws could have been used as a lock. I just used the gib screw that came with no nut on it by "default".---It was that way when I brought the lathe home from the store.


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## petertha (Mar 29, 2017)

My carriage gears are coated with a waxy, cat mung which I have difficulty calling grease. Turns out some was also inadvertently smeared into some oil migration passages which lead to some shafts & bushing wear surfaces via the external oiler nipples. Therefore my ritual lubrication schedule was just wishful thinking all these years & explains the back pressure & oil dribble out the little oiler check valve ball. It was accomplishing zilch in terms of lubrication. So... I'm learning not to trust 'factory' as much.

When I'm all done I'll post some pics. I'm also going to plate off the bottom & convert the carriage case to a bath oil system like many comparable lathes have these days.

There is no sense complaining about the machine. It actually runs quite well & its amazing how they can build those things , ship 1000 pounds from the other side of the planet & make some profit through a middleman dealer. But you have to kind of treat them like a kit or hobby car where occasional tweaks & improvements may be required.


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## Linz (Nov 6, 2020)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Sledjunk--Really, the quickchange toolpost they sell fits on this lathe with no modification to the lathe or to the toolpost if you make the nut I posted. The only limiting factor is that the largest cutting tool you can use is a 3/8" square one. Where are you located?---Brian


Hi Brian,
I've just purchased this lathe. It won't arrive until the end of November. Do you happen to know what the model # of your quick change tool post was?
Thanks


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## Brian Rupnow (Nov 6, 2020)

It is stamped 250-100- China. I don't remember where I bought it now.---Brian


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## Linz (Nov 6, 2020)

Thanks for the quick reply.


Brian Rupnow said:


> It is stamped 250-100- China. I don't remember where I bought it now.---Brian


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## ajoeiam (Nov 7, 2020)

Linz said:


> Thanks for the quick reply.


AliExpress does list such. 
Not much for any of the bigger sizes though!
Warning - - - AliE has gotten goofy. 
Some packages show up within a month easy - - - - others  - - - - well I've had to ask for refunds a few times already!!


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## Linz (Dec 28, 2020)

I still haven't received my Craftex 701 lathe or 601 mill so I've been trying to round up a few of the things I'll need. I've gotten a QCTP kit (axa size) and a few other items from Accusize through Amazon. An ALSGS power feed for the mill was purchased through Aliexpress. The power feed was my first Aliexpress purchase and it went quite well. I'm currently looking into DRO's for each machine. I've got it narrowed down to a couple glass scale kits on Aliexpress for the mill, just need to decide on scale lengths. After reading this thread a couple times, I now realize that Brian used "magnetic" scales for his lathe installation. I've read up on the advantages of the magnetic scales but they do come at a price. DRO Pros would be over $1300cad and that's just not going to happen. The limited number I've found so far on Amazon, while less than half that price, are still near double the price of glass scales. My questions now are; Would glass scales work ok on the 701 lathe mounted similarly to Brian's install? If so, are there any 701 specific drawbacks(fit, contamination, etc)? 

For those with the 701; what overall scale lengths should be ordered for this machine?

Thanks,
Lindsay


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## ajoeiam (Dec 29, 2020)

Linz said:


> I still haven't received my Craftex 701 lathe or 601 mill so I've been trying to round up a few of the things I'll need. I've gotten a QCTP kit (axa size) and a few other items from Accusize through Amazon. An ALSGS power feed for the mill was purchased through Aliexpress. The power feed was my first Aliexpress purchase and it went quite well. I'm currently looking into DRO's for each machine. I've got it narrowed down to a couple glass scale kits on Aliexpress for the mill, just need to decide on scale lengths. After reading this thread a couple times, I now realize that Brian used "magnetic" scales for his lathe installation. I've read up on the advantages of the magnetic scales but they do come at a price. DRO Pros would be over $1300cad and that's just not going to happen. The limited number I've found so far on Amazon, while less than half that price, are still near double the price of glass scales. My questions now are; Would glass scales work ok on the 701 lathe mounted similarly to Brian's install? If so, are there any 701 specific drawbacks(fit, contamination, etc)?
> 
> For those with the 701; what overall scale lengths should be ordered for this machine?
> 
> ...



I have bought mostly electronics type stuff from AliExpress ( I call it AliE) over a number of years. This year I have bought a few complete tools and more general stuff items. IMO this year AliE is not doing such a good job. A lot of electronics stuff has drastically increased in price and chipping costs have gone through the roof. I now have had which is likely shipping issues on 2 not so small items. On the first the vendor just didn't send the right item (2 models available on the original listing) where their fix was quite arbitrary and not exactly 'useful' and the second the stuff just never managed to leave China - - - the shipping time kept extending until I finally said that that was enough. Just to make sure things are interesting it is quite difficult to get through to a 'real person' when you want assistance - -  AliE's electronic gate minder is a real witch! This kind of male bovine excrement has me quite reluctant to try ordering more stuff from AliE - - - - am really starting to wonder if the headaches and hassles pay out the cheaper pricing. YMMV!


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## Courierdog (Dec 29, 2020)

When I spoke with the folks at DRO PRO I was told you could easily change the decimal point. this eliminating the over scale resolution flashing numbers.
This is a setting within the display totally separate from the scale accuracy.
The folks at DRO PRO are extremely easy to work with and are more than willing to go the extra mile to ensure your total satisfaction with their product.


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## Linz (Dec 29, 2020)

ajoeiam said:


> I have bought mostly electronics type stuff from AliExpress ( I call it AliE) over a number of years. This year I have bought a few complete tools and more general stuff items. IMO this year AliE is not doing such a good job. A lot of electronics stuff has drastically increased in price and chipping costs have gone through the roof. I now have had which is likely shipping issues on 2 not so small items. On the first the vendor just didn't send the right item (2 models available on the original listing) where their fix was quite arbitrary and not exactly 'useful' and the second the stuff just never managed to leave China - - - the shipping time kept extending until I finally said that that was enough. Just to make sure things are interesting it is quite difficult to get through to a 'real person' when you want assistance - -  AliE's electronic gate minder is a real witch! This kind of male bovine excrement has me quite reluctant to try ordering more stuff from AliE - - - - am really starting to wonder if the headaches and hassles pay out the cheaper pricing. YMMV!


The prices of everything has gone up regardless of where you buy from. Taking into account the value of the Canadian Peso makes it even worse. As far as shipping goes, generally, I can get things shipped cheaper from China than from the USA. My limited experience with AliE so far has been good. With all considered I will continue ordering from there until that changes.


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## Courierdog (Dec 29, 2020)

I vote with Linz, AliExpress and Banggood both provide excellent value especially shipped direct from China to Canada. I will also say I do not get the usual Excessive Brokerage fees charged by USPS, FedEX or UPS. or the latest US cannot be shipped to Canada. It used to convenient to order from the US and service was friendly this all changed in the past 4 years. This past year of COVID-19 has only made everything much worse.
Thanks for Listening


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## Courierdog (Jan 19, 2021)

When you talk with DRO PRO you will also find out there source in India, and that is another topic of discussion. Much of the mechanical expertise is very British is origin. This does not limit their design and they are fierce competitors of the Chinese. So if you have patience the India market is accessible. Plus they have a more favoured trade status with Canada. Plus I am sure we all have friend who know some one who knows someone as the saying goes.


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## Shopgeezer (Jan 19, 2021)

My last tool order, a tailstock die holder set, came from India. Quality was comparable to Chinese tools and delivery was fairly quick. I took out a Prime membership with Amazon so delivery was free. I thought I would test the limits of the free delivery and ordered a small surface plate that was a good price. And yes even that was free delivery. We live in the country so couriers won’t touch us. We have a friend in town receive shipments for us. The courier made a mistake and dropped the box off at their neighbour's house. The lady there was expecting shoes but couldn’t lift the box. She opened it, realized that it must be for our friend next door, and phoned him to ask why he had ordered a tombstone.


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## kwoodhands (Jan 19, 2021)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Todays update:: When I bought the lathe, it didn't come with a tailstock chuck, so I bought a 5/8" chuck with a detachable MT3 arbor. The arbor has a tang on it. The arbor will only fit into the tailstock if the tailstock is extended  1 1/4".--Huh?? That didn't seem right so I called BusyBee.--Seems I need an arbor without the tang. Only problem is, they don't sell an arbor without the tang that has the correct taper at the other end to fit the chuck. They do have a drawbar type arbor, but the damned thing has the wrong taper at the chuck end. Local Busybee called head office while I was there, and was told "We source our tooling from all over the world (read India) and we can't be responsible if the arbor doesn't fit the tailstock. "----Give me a friggin' break!!! Next step is to cut the tang off the arbor with my metal cutting bandsaw and "file to finish".


I told a friend to cut the tang .He did, too short and I had to go over there and remove the arbor. I chucked the arbor and used the rest to hold up the tang end . Faced the end and bored and tapped for a 3/8/ 16  machine bolt. Then adjusted the bolt so the arbor would pop out . The arbor would set tight at 1/2" and pop out at about 9/16".
He was used to a mini=lathe where the tail stock chuck was made short.
mike


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## Shopgeezer (Jan 20, 2021)

My King 10x20 lathe has an MT3 taper in the tailstock. The drill chuck arbor that came with the lathe has a tang but the tailstock tube had no matching bar inside to catch the tang. The tailstock is fussy about where it ejects the arbor when you  are close to the end of the travel so I was turning the taper sometimes when drilling. I took the tailstock tube to a real machine shop and we drilled an offset hole in the tube and pressed in a spring clip. This wasn’t quite up to factory precision but it catches the tang sufficiently to hold the arbor firm. 

I would have given that Busy Bee person a good piece of my mind. What nonsense is that!  Talk to his supervisor.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 21, 2021)

Brian Rupnow said:


> It is stamped 250-100- China. I don't remember where I bought it now.---Brian


OH, I am having this problem myself about the so called "200 series" quick change tool posts.  In some publications, they talk about such and such being in the "200 series" qc, but I have another "200 series" qc on another lathe and the two things are different sizes.  So the 200 series words are not accurate enough to describe the actual tool.  So I figure "250" means some kind of adjustment in the so called 200 series.  Does anyone know the exact meaning of these numbers?  Such as the above 250-100?


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## Richard Hed (Jan 21, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> When you talk with DRO PRO you will also find out there source in India, and that is another topic of discussion. Much of the mechanical expertise is very British is origin. This does not limit their design and they are fierce competitors of the Chinese. So if you have patience the India market is accessible. Plus they have a more favoured trade status with Canada. Plus I am sure we all have friend who know some one who knows someone as the saying goes.


Yes, I thimk I am going to try to use India made stuff when I can.  I thimpfk, however, that they have quality troubles and that may come from the fact that the Indians have tiny manufactories, like mom&pop manufactories.  They needs to get bigger to be better.


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## Courierdog (Jan 21, 2021)

Richard, you are so right about the condition of many so called factories in India, They farm out many functions to what we call the Mom & Pop stores. It is not that they cannot do good work but the QA is not the same as what we have come to know in western society and The Orient has adopted. India will get there in time. 
For the most part I find the Chinese Machinery to have better QA in General. The Trick is finding the same item with the names we know but from the original source and are willing to wait for shipment direct from China. The same applies for India but they are not organized in the same manner so it is much more difficult to get to the source, Unless you have help from expats neighbour who know a guy who knows a guy so to speak.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 21, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> Richard, you are so right about the condition of many so called factories in India, They farm out many functions to what we call the Mom & Pop stores. It is not that they cannot do good work but the QA is not the same as what we have come to know in western society and The Orient has adopted. India will get there in time.
> For the most part I find the Chinese Machinery to have better QA in General. The Trick is finding the same item with the names we know but from the original source and are willing to wait for shipment direct from China. The same applies for India but they are not organized in the same manner so it is much more difficult to get to the source, Unless you have help from expats neighbour who know a guy who knows a guy so to speak.


Exactly.  I bought a milling attachment for a small lathe from India.  It had good workmanship where it mattered, but the metal was relatively soft.  It was also some re-used material they must have found on the railroad track.  The screw handle had not been properly center hole drilled and that was broken off when it arrived.  The gib screw holes were done like a child had done the job and there were other small errors.  When I opened the package, the first thing that happened was that I cut my thumb on the sharp edges of the bed.  Ultimately, it works fine but next time I buy from India, I will be more careful in opening the package--LOL.


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## kwoodhands (Jan 21, 2021)

Swifty said:


> Looks exactly like the QCTP that I purchased earlier this year, the only negative thing about mine is that the sockets on the screws clamping the tool bit soon round off. My tool holders take 5/8" shanks and I have also made a special holder for 20mm shanks that I used on the old 4 way post. I occasionally change the toolposts around depending on which tool I want to use, it takes about 20 seconds.
> 
> I like your topslide table with the T slots in it, the ability to move the whole topslide in further is a great idea.
> 
> ...


I bought new Allen screws that are much better for the tool post than the ones that came with it. Not sure where I bought them, Mcmaster Carr, Bolt Depot etc. These are hardened metric screws  , the heads are much larger and take a larger hex wrench. I had to turn down the two screw heads next to the knurl as the larger heads interfered with height adjustment. Probably removed .032 or there about. I've been using these for about 4 years and no wear noticed at all.  I think the original screw heads cammed out after less than two years. I believe my QCTP is an  AXA and the piston type. The wedge types are supposed to be better, don't know as I only have used the piston type.


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## kwoodhands (Jan 21, 2021)

Brian Rupnow said:


> I have a problem, and it may not be as large as I see it, but it is a problem nonetheless. This lathe has has no carriage "lock" on it. There is a way to lock the topslide in place and there is a way to lock the cross-slide in place, but there is no way to lock the carriage in place on the ways. This is probably a good marketing strategy for Craftex, because if there was a carriage lock on it, sure as Hell somebody would lock the carriage, forget they had done so, and then engage the power feed and break something. You can "kind of" lock the carriage in place by not engaging the power feed at the gearbox and putting the lever on the front of the apron in "power-feed" position. This stops the carriage from being moved with the big hand-wheel on the front of the apron, but it will move (As measured with dial indicator) 0.019" left to right because of backlash in the power feed mechanism in the apron. This isn't a lot, but it becomes HUGE if you are doing anything like machining the rod journal on a crankshaft, as shown in the pictures. The slot is only .375" wide. The journal when turned to finished diameter will be .375" diameter. This means that to machine it, you must use a tool with a lot of "stick-out" from the tool-holder, because of the offsets in a typical crankshaft. I have machined the "sides" of the journal to finished dimension. Now I have to move the tool in and finish turning the journal to finished size. (It is 0.430" diameter right now.)  The tool is .125" wide. So--the tool only has to traverse 0.25" in total left to right to take this finish cut on the diameter. With a good set of carriage stops mounted to the front "way" on the lathe, I could turn the wheel on the apron and move the carriage left to right, depending on the carriage stops to prevent going to far and have the turning crankshaft whack the top of the tool and break something. I find the movement you get by turning the wheel on the front of the apron to be very "coarse" and to not give a very good "feel" for what the tool is actually doing. I prefer to make the tool move left to right or vice-versa by turning the feed handle on the topslide. This gives me a much better control of the tool movement.---I can design and build an adjustable "travel limiter" which I can set up to limit the amount of travel of the topslide very accurately.--But---I still have that damned 0.019" of slop in the carriage to contend with. So--Okay--I can design and build a "carriage lock" that will securely lock the table in place as well---but it must be a "lock" which can slide without damaging the carriage or the ways or the gearbox if the "power feed" does accidentally get engaged. I can do that too--but now it's beginning to become a lot of extra work. This is definitely not a job where the power feed would ever be engaged but, "stuff happens". How do other folks with this lathe, or a clone of it handle this situation?---Brian


I believe you do have a carriage stop. Look at the carriage and you will see an Allen wrench screw.
In the photo it is on the flat portion  to right of the compound ( top slide) handle and below the Tail stock.
Not familiar with your lathe but my 10x22 Grizzly lathe Has a similar lock  screw .
mike


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## Richard Hed (Jan 21, 2021)

kwoodhands said:


> I believe you do have a carriage stop. Look at the carriage and you will see an Allen wrench screw.
> In the photo it is on the flat portion  to right of the compound ( top slide) handle and below the Tail stock.
> Not familiar with your lathe but my 10x22 Grizzly lathe Has a similar lock  screw .
> mike


Wait a sec.  A carraige stop and a lock are different things.  I thimpfk you are meaning 'lock'.


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## L98fiero (Jan 22, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> Wait a sec.  A carraige stop and a lock are different things.  I thimpfk you are meaning 'lock'.


And given the location of the two screws with the dowel between them, it's more likely holding the apron to the carriage. Unless there's another screw I don't think there's a lock either. FWIW, I don't have a lathe like that either.


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## ignator (Jan 22, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> OH, I am having this problem myself about the so called "200 series" quick change tool posts.  In some publications, they talk about such and such being in the "200 series" qc, but I have another "200 series" qc on another lathe and the two things are different sizes.  So the 200 series words are not accurate enough to describe the actual tool.  So I figure "250" means some kind of adjustment in the so called 200 series.  Does anyone know the exact meaning of these numbers?  Such as the above 250-100?


The two types of QCTP, piston:wedge are supposed to use the same tool holders. I see that when I purchase them from Shars they had an issue with tolerance from their China factory. I have some holders that are darn tight. And I've had them to be sloppy loose.
Also, what I've inserted does not have the "zero" size which has recently shown up for the mini lathes.
Below I inserted info from PhaseII catalog.









Richard, this is probably not what your asking.


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## awake (Jan 22, 2021)

As I understand it, the "200" size of QCTP is meant to be analogous to the "B" series of Aloris QCTPs. Many of the manufacturers attempt to make the 200 and the B series interchangeable. But the 200 designation is not a standard; it is really up to individual manufacturers what exactly that means, so there is no guarantee that a 200-size tool holder from one company will match either an Aloris or another company's 200 series.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 22, 2021)

ignator said:


> The two types of QCTP, piston:wedge are supposed to use the same tool holders. I see that when I purchase them from Shars they had an issue with tolerance from their China factory. I have some holders that are darn tight. And I've had them to be sloppy loose.
> Also, what I've inserted does not have the "zero" size which has recently shown up for the mini lathes.
> Below I inserted info from PhaseII catalog.
> View attachment 122375
> ...


Actually, you've cleared one thing up and yet made it more confusing.  I thimpfk the second number in the designation indicates what size lathe swing one has, but it doesn't explain the first number.  It was my mistake to thimpfk that the first number (in this case the 251, in my case 250)  had to do with the "200 series".  In any case, the holding area only designates the size of tool shank to be held, my question is 'what designates the size of the 'V' clamping area?'  I have several that are less than a fraction of a mm off.  I believe they are US made.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 22, 2021)

awake said:


> As I understand it, the "200" size of QCTP is meant to be analogous to the "B" series of Aloris QCTPs. Many of the manufacturers attempt to make the 200 and the B series interchangeable. But the 200 designation is not a standard; it is really up to individual manufacturers what exactly that means, so there is no guarantee that a 200-size tool holder from one company will match either an Aloris or another company's 200 series.


Ah, lack of standardization!  What a load of krap, (or is that karp?)  originally, I had a few QTs that didn't fit the post I had (still have) then so I took a grinder and gently ground them out and they work fine.  But now, I have a second toolpost on another lathe with the same prob.  The difference is probably less than 10thou.  Maybe i'll grind out one to fit the new post and test to see if it still works on the old one.  If that is the case, I could use the QTs for both lathes.


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## Courierdog (Jan 22, 2021)

Whe I purchased my Lathe 3536 from the Little machine shop I also got the QCTP 250 (0XA) later I obtained the AXA and the adaptor Nut and the Modified central screw post.
Oddly enough both work fin on my lathe.
We are getting off topic as this thread was supposed to be about Brian's report on his CX701 Lathe. Every time I go over to BBT I drool over these lathes. The ones Edmonton puts out on display have been meticulously cleaned and lubricated and adjusted to give that quality feel with every turn of a knob. We had a Craftex in our lab and while I had a machinist come in and align and fine fit the entire lathe it was an excellent machine.
So let hear more from Brian's adventure, and more picture of course. Lets hear it Brian, I am sure you have a lot more to tell us


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## Richard Hed (Jan 22, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> Whe I purchased my Lathe 3536 from the Little machine shop I also got the QCTP 250 (0XA) later I obtained the AXA and the adaptor Nut and the Modified central screw post.
> Oddly enough both work fin on my lathe.
> We are getting off topic as this thread was supposed to be about Brian's report on his CX701 Lathe. Every time I go over to BBT I drool over these lathes. The ones Edmonton puts out on display have been meticulously cleaned and lubricated and adjusted to give that quality feel with every turn of a knob. We had a Craftex in our lab and while I had a machinist come in and align and fine fit the entire lathe it was an excellent machine.
> So let hear more from Brian's adventure, and more picture of course. Lets hear it Brian, I am sure you have a lot more to tell us


Brian's topic is five years old, he has completed his report, unless he has something new to add after owning it for five years and finding out the long term problems or additions or changes he has made.  I would like to hear about it myself, but in the mean time, I thimpfk it is rather a good thing to hear about other people's work or problems on the machines.  I find it interesting that you, yourself, found the various QCTP parts workt together.  Even so, I still haven't found out what the tiny differences are in such numbers as 251-100 and 250-100.  I suppose I will have to break down and go look on Dogpile, or DuckDuckGo.  That's where we get the words "doggit" and "dukduk" -- meaning to search on the internet.


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## Courierdog (Jan 22, 2021)

Richard Hed:
OK on the QCTP
I believe the difference between the 250-100 which is the sliding wedge style and the 251-100 is the Piston Style.
The attachments re propertied to be identical.
I have the 250-100 and several attachments which I obtained from the Little Machine Shop.
The 250-100 QCTP replaces the existing four-sided Tool Post on the LMS Lathes with nothing more than removing one and replacing it with the other.
While the AXA Aloris QCTP requires a new Centre Bolt and Compound Nut
The LMS carries this style of tool post in three sizes (0XA, AXA, BXA), with sets configured for several different lathes.
Here is a quote from their Literature.
0XA or Series 000
The 0XA (250-100) is the smallest of the three sizes. The body of the tool post is 1.75” square and 2.5” tall. This tool post is a good fit for lathes up to 8” swing. We carry two standard sets in this size.
PN 3112 has a cut-off tool holder that holds the cut-off blade horizontal. This allows the set to work with lathes with only 0.63” vertical distance from the top of the compound to the centerline of the lathe. This quick change tool post set bolts on to 7x10, 7x12, 7x14, and 7x16 mini lathes with no additional hardware.
PN 3048 has a cut-off tool holder that holds the cut-off blade at the standard 4° angle. This set requires 0.75” vertical distance from the top of the compound to the centerline of the lathe.
The only difference between the PN 3112 set and PN 3048 set is the cut-off tool holder; the tool posts are identical. The PN 3112 set includes the PN 3117 cut-off tool holder. The PN 3048 set includes the PN 3774 cut-off tool holder.
Our 0XA quick change too post sets that are configured for specific lathes include either the PN 3112 or the PN 3048. Besides the quick change tool post sets, these products include special mounting hardware.
AXA or Series 100
The AXA quick change tool post is designed for lathes with swing from 7” to 12”. We carry the Aloris brand (PN 3876) and a less expensive version of a similar design (PN 2280).
In my case I required the 4117 mounting stud.
This stud is threaded M12 on the bottom and M10 on the top.
Quick Change Tool Post Mount, 0XA for Lathes	
Requires 4914 compound rest top. This is the current method to allow more clearance for the tool holders.
I fit mine without the as my tool holders in the lathe as the Diamond Tool Holder has adequate clearance.
I hope this helps.


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## Courierdog (Jan 22, 2021)

Richard:
A Little more information from where I acquired some of my Quick Change Holders





						quick change tool post and holder sets
					

quick change tool post sets




					www.phase2plus.com
				



I was wrong on the number designation.
The same number can be used on either the Wedge or the Piston style QCTP.


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## ignator (Jan 22, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> Brian's topic is five years old, he has completed his report, unless he has something new to add after owning it for five years and finding out the long term problems or additions or changes he has made.  I would like to hear about it myself, but in the mean time, I thimpfk it is rather a good thing to hear about other people's work or problems on the machines.  I find it interesting that you, yourself, found the various QCTP parts workt together.  Even so, I still haven't found out what the tiny differences are in such numbers as 251-100 and 250-100.  I suppose I will have to break down and go look on Dogpile, or DuckDuckGo.  That's where we get the words "doggit" and "dukduk" -- meaning to search on the internet.


251-xxx was the part number of a set (tool post and a few holders) as seen in my post above.
250-xxx for individual part numbers of the post or holders.


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## kwoodhands (Jan 22, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> Wait a sec.  A carraige stop and a lock are different things.  I thimpfk you are meaning 'lock'.


You are correct, I meant carriage lock which I did say  later in my post.


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## Courierdog (Jan 23, 2021)

Shopgeezer said:


> My last tool order, a tailstock die holder set, came from India. Quality was comparable to Chinese tools and delivery was fairly quick. I took out a Prime membership with Amazon so delivery was free. I thought I would test the limits of the free delivery and ordered a small surface plate that was a good price. And yes even that was free delivery. We live in the country so couriers won’t touch us. We have a friend in town receive shipments for us. The courier made a mistake and dropped the box off at their neighbour's house. The lady there was expecting shoes but couldn’t lift the box. She opened it, realized that it must be for our friend next door, and phoned him to ask why he had ordered a tombstone.


I fully understand the country aspect as I have friends who are forced to do the same as you. However just because I live in the Big City, does not mean better service, with all the different couriers and the churn in their contractors just getting it to the right door can be a problem. I had several deliveries to the wrong side of the house, where there is not where to walk. Delivered to my neighbours house with a picture taken of my house address from the far side of my house. It isn not that the 8 inch tall numbers are difficult to read of in a hidden location. There are times when I think some delivery people are just not suited for the task.
And after all there those of us who sit at home with nothing better to do then to complain about the delivery people, everyone says retired people sit around doing nothing and their time is not worth anything.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 23, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> I fully understand the country aspect as I have friends who are forced to do the same as you. However just because I live in the Big City, does not mean better service, with all the different couriers and the churn in their contractors just getting it to the right door can be a problem. I had several deliveries to the wrong side of the house, where there is not where to walk. Delivered to my neighbours house with a picture taken of my house address from the far side of my house. It isn not that the 8 inch tall numbers are difficult to read of in a hidden location. There are times when I think some delivery people are just not suited for the task.
> And after all there those of us who sit at home with nothing better to do then to complain about the delivery people, everyone says retired people sit around doing nothing and their time is not worth anything.


Oh, that's a good one.  There are indeed a lot of retired people who sit around and couch potato for the rest of their lives.  That is the point:  the rest of their lives--they generally die within two years of retiring.  If we don't have anything to do, we die.  So by that token, I should live to 300


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## ajoeiam (Jan 23, 2021)

ignator said:


> The two types of QCTP, piston:wedge are supposed to use the same tool holders. I see that when I purchase them from Shars they had an issue with tolerance from their China factory. I have some holders that are darn tight. And I've had them to be sloppy loose.
> Also, what I've inserted does not have the "zero" size which has recently shown up for the mini lathes.
> Below I inserted info from PhaseII catalog.


Would you be able to attach a copy of your pdf catalog here?
(would love pricing!)


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 23, 2021)

Guys---Please!! I started this thread to be an aid to people who purchased the CX701 lathe. If you want to continue your dialogue, start a new thread.---Brian


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## Courierdog (Jan 23, 2021)

Brian Rupnow said:


> Guys---Please!! I started this thread to be an aid to people who purchased the CX701 lathe. If you want to continue your dialogue, start a new thread.---Brian


Well my objective was accomplished.
Hello Brian.
When you finished up in Nov of 2020 I felt like you had just got over the hard part with the lathe and now we want to hear about your continued experience. All of us who frequent BBT love to drool all over these lathes.
So stop keeping us all in suspense and tell us more, and in that way the thread can continue as intended about the CX701. and those of us who have the wannabe lathes can virtually drool along with your tales and journey to mastering the BBT CX701. ha ha
Thanks for taking the time to answer the forum


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 23, 2021)

I am very happy with this lathe. It gets used a lot, and other than minor issues (switch inside rear door and loose connections) it has served me faithfully and well. It has a 1.5" diameter hole thru the spindle, which lets me work on any of the larger things I do. I found that I simply had to add a dro system to it to get any speed out of what I was making, and I added a carriage stop and a quick change toolpost. To me, this is the perfect size of lathe for someone making more advanced modelling and a bit of production work. It has power feed on the carriage and on the cross slide, and it comes with a carriage lock and a cross-slide lock.


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## Courierdog (Jan 23, 2021)

I followed the entire article, which I copied and pasted into a document which I can now read c/w pictures.
Great stuff.
Be very careful the Roberta Long Term Care Facility near you has had the worst out break of COVID-19 in Canada. It is highly suspect that it also one of the Mutant Variants of the Virus.
My Son-In-Law is a contractor Micro-biologist who is working on the Oxford Vaccine. So I am able to get my info from a knowledgable source.
Do not be shy.
An update on how the Lathe is doing. Have you sorted out the unbalance of the Chuck yet. Is your DRO installation worked as well as you had planned, Any recommendations as to thing you would now do differently.
ETC
Thanks for listening


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 23, 2021)

I am aware of what is going on at the long term care home in Barrie. The lathe chuck still has an out of balance vibration at about 650 rpm, but I seldom run it that fast. I find that 600 rpm works quite well with my brazed carbide tooling. I love the dro and would do nothing to change it. (Well maybe I would have put the cross-feed dro on the side opposite the chuck if there had been an easy way of doing it.) My wife and I are listed as "Essential care givers" for my 100 year old mother in Bancroft, and our names have been entered for Covid vaccine inoculations when the rest of the old folks in the home get their shots. This is kind of a pain in the ass, because Bancroft is 185 km. from here, but as we understand it, they will be inoculated by the middle of February. Meanwhile, other than monthly trips to Bancroft we are staying home and not seeing anyone which makes a very long and boring winter. We visit our grandkids on the "zoom" so that we can see the kids and stay in touch.---Brian


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## Courierdog (Jan 23, 2021)

Brian
At least you are using ZOOM and staying in touch. Many of our friends are afraid of technology, and even more afraid to try. Yet they have a Smartphone, go figure.
I would suggest if the roads are good then take the easiest opportunity to have the vaccine. I am told we will not grow two left feet, like I need another, I trip enough. 
Above all else keep your sneak of humour or even culture an  greater OGER Avitar, My daughter got me the Sign. Beware, Grumpy Old Man. This is why is use the friendly Rottweiler Picture. She was better looking than I will ever be.
When and if you have time I would like to discuss a project I have in mind.
Back to the CX701. Are the Jaws of the Chuck running true or is that part of the unbalance.
There are many suspects for the unbalance. I do believe you said you did run the lathe without the chuck and there was no unbalance.
It does concern me, only in the fact that it is there at all. It is not something I have read is common with these lathes. There has to be a source for the unbalance.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 23, 2021)

Brian Rupnow said:


> I am aware of what is going on at the long term care home in Barrie. The lathe chuck still has an out of balance vibration at about 650 rpm, but I seldom run it that fast. I find that 600 rpm works quite well with my brazed carbide tooling. I love the dro and would do nothing to change it. (Well maybe I would have put the cross-feed dro on the side opposite the chuck if there had been an easy way of doing it.) My wife and I are listed as "Essential care givers" for my 100 year old mother in Bancroft, and our names have been entered for Covid vaccine inoculations when the rest of the old folks in the home get their shots. This is kind of a pain in the ass, because Bancroft is 185 km. from here, but as we understand it, they will be inoculated by the middle of February. Meanwhile, other than monthly trips to Bancroft we are staying home and not seeing anyone which makes a very long and boring winter. We visit our grandkids on the "zoom" so that we can see the kids and stay in touch.---Brian


Man alive, if I was 185 km from the city, I would NOT go there till the covid thing irons out.


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## Richard Hed (Jan 23, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> Brian
> At least you are using ZOOM and staying in touch. Many of our friends are afraid of technology, and even more afraid to try. Yet they have a Smartphone, go figure.
> I would suggest if the roads are good then take the easiest opportunity to have the vaccine. I am told we will not grow two left feet, like I need another, I trip enough.
> Above all else keep your sneak of humour or even culture an  greater OGER Avitar, My daughter got me the Sign. Beware, Grumpy Old Man. This is why is use the friendly Rottweiler Picture. She was better looking than I will ever be.
> ...


There is a possibilty that unbalance only comes with the load of the chuck and has nothing to do with the chuck being unbalanced.  If that is the case, it must be the spindle.  What are the bearings like?  How old are the bearings?  Is it difficult to change the bearings?  What kind are they?


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## davidl (Jan 30, 2021)

Hi Brian,
I recently added a four jaw 4 inch dia chuck to my little Seig lathe. (It was originally equipped with a 3inch chuck) . I also had imbalance issues over 6oorpm.  Problem solved when I noted the various bolt holes for mounting etc were not evenly situated.  Easily fixed by carefully mounting an addionaly recessed bolt as a balance weight.  Now runs beautifully.


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## lathe nut (Jan 31, 2021)

*Courierdog*
would you know if really that is shot is worth it not having very little contact with the people and of course wear the mask, is this like a flue shot that is a shot in the dark, 30,000 know virus's and if there is mutations then it might be in vane, if you shed some light on this we have not taken ours yet, thanks, Joe


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## Courierdog (Jan 31, 2021)

Well, I know both my wife will have the vaccination, when it comes our turn.


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## Courierdog (Feb 8, 2021)

While not quite a Tombstone but it could be engraved as an unground marker. 
those things are not light by anyones standards.


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## Linz (Mar 8, 2021)

After purchasing a new CX601 mill and CX701 lathe (with stands) on November 5 2020 in Edmonton and being told I would get them at the end of the month, I finally got everything the second week of February 2021. I spent the better part of the afternoon on Friday the 12th setting them up and getting all the rust preventative goop cleaned off. After checking all the knobs and switches were in the correct positions and everything in the proximity of the lathe was picked up and cleared away, I plugged it in for the test run. The start switch was pressed and the variable speed control knob was slowly advanced. The spindle began rotating intermittently eventually reaching around 200 RPM by the midway point. Further advancement of the knob produced no increase in RPM, in fact, by the time it reached it's limit everything stopped completely. Returning the knob to the lowest setting and attempting again produced no result. DOA. Not Happy! I checked both fuses and the safety switch, all good. Line power was coming in but nothing reaching the motor. I didn't want to pull anything apart until talking with BusyBee. Being in the West I called the head branch (Concord) early on Saturday morning. Despite being listed as open on Saturday nobody answered any of the numbers. I called Edmonton later that morning. My first inclination was to just give them back the machine and get another one but, unfortunately, I have learned that BusyBee seems to never have anything in stock! I was further disappointed to learn they stock ZERO parts for their machines in Edmonton. On top of that they don't perform any services or repairs locally. I was told I could bring it to them and they would ship it to Ontario for repairs. OK, now we're bordering on retarded.  More to follow....try to keep individual posts to reasonable length.


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## Richard Hed (Mar 8, 2021)

Linz said:


> After purchasing a new CX601 mill and CX701 lathe (with stands) on November 5 2020 in Edmonton and being told I would get them at the end of the month, I finally got everything the second week of February 2021. I spent the better part of the afternoon on Friday the 12th setting them up and getting all the rust preventative goop cleaned off. After checking all the knobs and switches were in the correct positions and everything in the proximity of the lathe was picked up and cleared away, I plugged it in for the test run. The start switch was pressed and the variable speed control knob was slowly advanced. The spindle began rotating intermittently eventually reaching around 200 RPM by the midway point. Further advancement of the knob produced no increase in RPM, in fact, by the time it reached it's limit everything stopped completely. Returning the knob to the lowest setting and attempting again produced no result. DOA. Not Happy! I checked both fuses and the safety switch, all good. Line power was coming in but nothing reaching the motor. I didn't want to pull anything apart until talking with BusyBee. Being in the West I called the head branch (Concord) early on Saturday morning. Despite being listed as open on Saturday nobody answered any of the numbers. I called Edmonton later that morning. My first inclination was to just give them back the machine and get another one but, unfortunately, I have learned that BusyBee seems to never have anything in stock! I was further disappointed to learn they stock ZERO parts for their machines in Edmonton. On top of that they don't perform any services or repairs locally. I was told I could bring it to them and they would ship it to Ontario for repairs. OK, now we're bordering on retarded.  More to follow....try to keep individual posts to reasonable length.


Bring it to them on YOUR $?  How far is it?  This is not a nice thing to hear.  I thot Busybee was supposed to be more responsible than that.  I might understand it being late but not the irresponsibility part.  Sounds like what they pull in the Philippines.  I was guaranteed a ten year (acutally they said 'lifetime') warantee but when the crappy thing failed to work, it was MY responsibility to pay all technitians, transpo0rt and all the rest.


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## Linz (Mar 8, 2021)

So, On the Saturday I called Edmonton BusyBee in regards to the DOA lathe, after my dismay with the fact they don't carry any parts or do any repairs locally, I was told that quite often if you talk to the technical department at the head office, they can troubleshoot over the phone and just send you parts. So, it was that or take it back to Edmonton and have them ship it to Ontario. In all honesty, I was ready to load up everything and take it all back for a refund. I took a few deep breathes and decided to stay the course on trying to get the machine fixed. Being the Family Day long week-end I would have to wait until Tuesday to talk with anyone in Ontario. Tuesday morning I was eventually able to get through to the Concord office desk. I explained the situation to the woman there who said she would forward the information to the technical department and that someone would phone me back. She asked that in the interim I email the machine particulars to the technical department, which I did. A BusyBee rep phoned me later that afternoon and I explained the situation to him. He said he thought it was the switch and would send me a new one. I had concerns that it may be the control board and asked him if the board could be tested without the switch to confirm it was in fact the switch that was faulty. He said he would talk with a tech and get back to me. Getting back to me he said they couldn't function the board without the switch. I told him how frustrated I was with the whole BusyBee experience to that point, but that I realized things do fail. I said I was willing to work with them to resolve the issue but also that I would be extremely pissed if I waited for a $1 potentiometer to show up and then had to wait again for a control board if the switch (variable speed control knob- potentiometer, take your pick on the nomenclature) wasn't the problem. he agreed to send a potentiometer and control board and asked if I would ship back the faulty or unused replacement parts. I agreed and he said he would get them sent right away.


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## Linz (Mar 8, 2021)

With new parts to come time to disassemble and test. Here is the Potentiometer. It is a 4.7k ohm wire wound linear pot. These particular ones are about as cheap as they come. I tested the resistance with my fluke meter and it was good.  Resistance acceptable and varied with knob rotation. No short or open detected. So the pot doesn't appear to be the problem. Incidentally, these sell for 79cents on Aliexpress. It's also used in the 601 mill. I read a post somewhere that these pots are commonly  prone to failure (not necessarily a craftex). I ordered 3 on Ali delivered for $8, just to get ahead of any future issue.


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## Linz (Mar 8, 2021)

Here is the filter. All good here on voltage test with meter. Bottom 3 connections; Line in, Ground in, Neutral in. Top connections Line out, Neutral out. For reference, the small white connector provides stepped down voltage to the readout display. The A and B terminals, bottom left, work in conjunction with the potentiometer P1, P2 terminals and terminal 11 and 12 on the f/r switch to provide reduced power when reverse is selected.


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## Linz (Mar 8, 2021)

Here is the speed control board (aka a dc drive). It's function is to covert the 110vac to 90vdc.  Line voltage is fed in via terminals 24 and 14 on the magnetic start switch to L1, L2 on the control board. Output is controlled by the pot connected to the P1, P2 and P3 terminals and output on the A+ and A- terminals on the board to terminals 5 and 7 on the forward/reverse switch and from the switch to the motor via terminals 6 on 2. The f/r switch just reverses the 5,7 connections to the 6,2 motor output for operation in opposite direction. Made by KB Electronics in Florida. KBLC-240D. Believe it is the same used in the cx601 mill. Makes sense, it's the same motor. I don't think they make these anymore although the current KBIC-240D is almost identical. These sell through various vendors in the US for $92usd + exchange rate + shipping. You may be able to source locally, there


 is a place in Edmonton that sells them for $172cad + gst.


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## Linz (Mar 8, 2021)

All terminals, connections and functions on the magnetic start switch, f/r switch, door safety switch, fuses and holders were tested with my meter and all are good. There is 110v at the speed control L1,L2 connections but NO output on the A+ A- terminals. There doesn't appear to be any burnt diodes or scr's which are attached from the board to the heat sink with shcs, or on the board itself. I will not be testing individual board components. It looks like the problem is somewhere in the board. The board, as a whole will be replaced.


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## Bazzer (Mar 9, 2021)

Linz

Go with your first inclination and ship it all back for a refund, I will be surprised if you are ever happy with these machines, you have technical ability and probably have high standards.

You have not started machining yet to see if there are mechanical defects as well!!


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## Paul135 (Mar 9, 2021)

Sorry to learn of your misfortune that the KB Electronics board has arrived effectively faulty.  My own lathe, supplied from the UK, which looks very much like yours, made by Sumore Machinery in China (rebadged by many I think) had a copy of the KB board.  After a couple of years this failed.  I didn't have the electronics repair knowledge then that I have now.  Investigations on the Internet showed this was a KB copy and that the KB boards were considered the best.  So I ordered one, Installed it making wiring mods to make it easier to change in the even of a failure.  Since, touch wood, no probs.

I have subsequently investigated the Chinese copy.  These boards have 2 Triacs on them.  Testing at component level showed they were blown.  I ordered new Triacs and replacement power diodes as well (the row of 3 legged chips on the heat sink.  When I can eventually get round to it I will do the repair and keep in stock as my mill has the same board.  The Triac and diode failures can happen with no visible evidence.  Only component testing will reveal which one is kaput.

Paul


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## L98fiero (Mar 9, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> I was guaranteed a ten year (acutally they said 'lifetime') warantee but when the crappy thing failed to work, it was MY responsibility to pay all technitians, transpo0rt and all the rest.


Richard, what you failed to realize was that 'lifetime' means the lifetime of the machine, i.e., until it dies, then you're on your own. That's like going to a muffler shop  that will give a lifetime warranty on parts only so after two years you have to pay $800 to have a $50 muffler replaced.


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## Linz (Mar 9, 2021)

Today has been 3 weeks since BusyBee told me they would send parts right away for my brand new DOA lathe and NOTHING. I have called several times and generally end up holding until you automatically get sent to voicemail. I did get someone to answer once yesterday but she just transferred me to another number where the above cycle was repeated. I have left several messages but apparently don't rate high enough for the courtesy of a return call. I realize I am not their only customer but c'mon.


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## Linz (Mar 9, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> Bring it to them on YOUR $?  How far is it?  This is not a nice thing to hear.  I thot Busybee was supposed to be more responsible than that.  I might understand it being late but not the irresponsibility part.  Sounds like what they pull in the Philippines.  I was guaranteed a ten year (acutally they said 'lifetime') warantee but when the crappy thing failed to work, it was MY responsibility to pay all technitians, transpo0rt and all the rest.


The local BusyBee store is within an hours drive. That's not really an issue. The problem is you can't just throw the machine in your pocket and head out. The Edmonton store carries NO parts and does NO service or repairs so even if you take the machine there it still has to be shipped to Ontario. After speaking with the head office rep I was more than willing to let them send me the parts, as he suggested, and perform the repairs myself. I have saved them hundreds by them not having to ship a 500+lb machine back and forth across the country as well as paying their employees to deal with the repair. While not necessarily overnight, these parts should have at least been couriered and received within a week. 3 weeks later and NOTHING. This is a brand new machine, I can only imagine what happens with something down the road. Their total lack of communication and what appears to be total indifference to customer satisfaction is what bothers me the most.


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## awake (Mar 9, 2021)

Linz, I hate that you are having so much trouble - and with a brand-new machine, to boot!

It doesn't help you at all to say this, but your experience will be a useful "marker" in the ever-continuing discussion of whether to buy old iron or new. One of the major arguments against old iron is having to do repairs. Well ... !

This also points to the downside of newer technology. Belt- or gear-selected speed changes are not nearly as sexy as infinitely variable speed control, but a good old single-speed induction motor has a rugged simplicity that may be starting to sound pretty good right now!

Please note that I am NOT bashing either new iron or new tech. On the contrary, I love to work with new(er) tech, especially of the CNC variety. But it is useful to remember that the greater capability that comes with the new tech also comes at the cost of greater complexity, and consequently more ways for the system to fail. It is a trade-off that does not need to be feared or maligned, but does need to be recognized.


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## packrat (Mar 9, 2021)

QUOTE..
"This also points to the downside of newer technology. Belt- or gear-selected speed changes are not nearly as sexy as infinitely variable speed control, but a good old single-speed induction motor has a rugged simplicity that may be starting to sound pretty good right now!"

awake You are so right about that statement.


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## awake (Mar 9, 2021)

packrat said:


> QUOTE..
> "This also points to the downside of newer technology. Belt- or gear-selected speed changes are not nearly as sexy as infinitely variable speed control, but a good old single-speed induction motor has a rugged simplicity that may be starting to sound pretty good right now!"
> 
> awake You are so right about that statement.



 There is a reason that I have simple old iron in my shop - a 70-year-old Cincinnati TrayTop lathe (gear selected speeds) and a ??-old BP JS head (mechanical vari-speed). The reason has nothing to do with being cheap. Nothing. Really!

The lathe runs on a single-phased motor that someone converted it to before I bought it. The mill runs on the original 3-phase motor, powered by a simple RPC that I put together out of a free scavenged motor and a few odds and ends. I know everyone says to use a VFD ... and it would be MUCH quieter than the RPC ... and the reason I have the latter is NOT because I was able to put it together for about $20. Definitely not. I am not cheap.

Well, not too cheap. Well, okay, I do have a tendency to find ways to re-purpose other people's junk rather than spend money on something new, but that has nothing to do with being cheap; it is simply a matter of being a good steward. I'm an environmentalist! Re-use, that's me. Nothing cheap about it. Really!


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## Linz (Mar 9, 2021)

Bazzer said:


> Linz
> 
> Go with your first inclination and ship it all back for a refund, I will be surprised if you are ever happy with these machines, you have technical ability and probably have high standards.
> 
> You have not started machining yet to see if there are mechanical defects as well!!


Yup. That's what I should have done. I'm almost thinking they have ignored the issue to push things past their 30 day return period, which it now is. After being unable to reach or speak with anyone in Ontario I called the local store late yesterday afternoon to inquire about returning the machines. He asked me what type of machines they were to which I responded, a mill and a lathe. He seemed totally indifferent to my request, never even asked what the problem was, and nonchalantly replied that I would just have to call the Head Office in Ontario and have them issue a return form. 

I came across the whole machining thing kind of by accident while gathering information related to another hobby. I read up a bit on the topic and watched a few youtube videos. It all seemed interesting and I thought it might be a fun hobby to pursue. I decided I would buy a benchtop mill and lathe. I was fully aware that with my limited funds (and knowledge) that it would have to be cheap(relatively speaking), bottom of the line, good enough for at home hobby work, machines. Here, in Edmonton, you are very limited to where you can find such machines. KMS Tools, where they had a couple of KING brand machines, literally just sitting on the floor clumped with various other machine tools, not inspiring much of an "I can't wait to buy feeling" and BusyBee.  The local BusyBee is a decent size. They have a fairly spacious well laid out showroom with the various machines set up on their respective stands. After speaking a bit with a couple of the staff there and even though they didn't have them currently available in-store, I decided to purchase the 601 mill and 701 lathe. I thought I was dealing with a local store. I was under the assumption they would support the machines as well as carry parts and accessories for them. That was my big mistake. I was too quick to buy and just didn't do proper pre-purchase research. The machines are what they are, I wasn't really expecting anything more. It's the customer service I feel to be severely lacking. On top of that, now I have to deal with a location in Ontario for my needs. It's like buying a car from a dealer down the street and then being told you have to drive it across the country to get any parts, service or warranty work done.

I thought I would get these machines and they would be fun to tinker with over the winter. Here it is almost 4 1/2 months later and I haven't turned a wheel. I am hoping that if/when the machines do get running that they don't explode right away but I've never had real high expectations of these machines. My high expectations were in regards to support and customer service and in these areas I do not feel they have been met.

"High standards" can rarely be met with "low budgets"


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## Linz (Mar 9, 2021)

Paul135 said:


> Sorry to learn of your misfortune that the KB Electronics board has arrived effectively faulty.  My own lathe, supplied from the UK, which looks very much like yours, made by Sumore Machinery in China (rebadged by many I think) had a copy of the KB board.  After a couple of years this failed.  I didn't have the electronics repair knowledge then that I have now.  Investigations on the Internet showed this was a KB copy and that the KB boards were considered the best.  So I ordered one, Installed it making wiring mods to make it easier to change in the even of a failure.  Since, touch wood, no probs.
> 
> I have subsequently investigated the Chinese copy.  These boards have 2 Triacs on them.  Testing at component level showed they were blown.  I ordered new Triacs and replacement power diodes as well (the row of 3 legged chips on the heat sink.  When I can eventually get round to it I will do the repair and keep in stock as my mill has the same board.  The Triac and diode failures can happen with no visible evidence.  Only component testing will reveal which one is kaput.
> 
> Paul


You're right, there are 2 scr (thrysistors) and 3 diodes( among other components) that can fail with no visible signs. I doubt any of them cost more than a couple of bucks to replace. I am not testing individual components because this is a new machine. They can replace the whole board under warranty. I'm already doing the work for them and saving THEM money. I'm not about to break out my soldering irons, source, wait for and replace individual components. I'll save that for any failures after the warranty period.


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## awake (Mar 9, 2021)

I would say that for most hobby machinists, dealing with a local store that can/will provide any significant support is unlikely. Around here, I could get a few low-end machine tools at Harbor Freight, but I would not expect anything in the way of service. (That said, they would probably be able to take back the machines, or swap them out - seems like some basic customer service is lacking in your experience of BB!) Those who live near a Grizzly outlet seem to have some success in having a "local store" experience ... but for the most part, it is a matter of ordering on-line and dealing with the concomitant delays and frustrations if things break or do not work. The expense and hassle involved in shipping multiple-hundred-kilo machines does not help in this regard. 

All that said ... does Precision Matthews serve Canada? They are selling the "same" Chinese import machinery as BB and many others, and it still would be a long-distance/on-line support relationship, but I have heard good things about the efforts they go to to make things right. Or what about Little Machine Shop? Again, don't know if they are available in Canada, but if so, they have a very good reputation as well. And for that matter, what about Grizzly? A bit more mixed in terms of the reports I've read, but generally pretty positive.

Of course, it may be that none of the above provide service to Canada, in which case ... 

On edit: a little searching suggests that all three of the above routinely ship to Canada. Might be worth checking out?


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## Richard Hed (Mar 9, 2021)

This kind of attitude is fostered usually by governments, for example, the post office personnel are in no hurry to help becauzse their jobs are completely secure and they don't need to help customers quickly and reliably.  I had a similar experience at Grizzly in Bellingham.  The store personnel didn't seem to care a bit about me.  Three people were helping the guy in front of me and getting nowhere, so I wandered off thimking they would call me next.  But lo or behold, they took the guy behind me who came in the store while I was not looking.  They very much had that 'post office' attitude--they seemed to treat me as a bother.  Finally, when it was my turn, I felt this feeling of 'we could care less' if we help you.  They had to sell a minimum and talk a minimum to their customers but I wonder how many customers were turned off by theier attitude and never came back?  Maybe it is just ME, MY attitude that I expect to be treated like I am the next in line to be KING! and that the red carpet will be rolled out just for my litter bearers to tread upon.  It's true that I really expect a person behind the counter to give me ALL their attention as if I am the only person alive at this moment (except for minor interruptions) and they will turn all their efforts gto solving my problem.  This is the way I treat other people and I expect the same for myself.  I actually called corporate about this too, so I hope someone put a prod up their orse.  The next time I came in was two months later to pick up my lathe.  They didn't seem to have changed much.

However, Grizz fosters their reputation for quickly fixing problems and as far as I know, all people with equipemnt problesm get them solved very quickly.  The only time a company stays in business with piss poor attitude is when they are a monopoly (ATT, 1972) and can spit in hyour face and STILL get your business.  Eventually, someone else will start a business and whack them silly (that is, BB).


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## Paul135 (Mar 9, 2021)

Linz said:


> You're right, there are 2 scr (thrysistors) and 3 diodes( among other components) that can fail with no visible signs. I doubt any of them cost more than a couple of bucks to replace. I am not testing individual components because this is a new machine. They can replace the whole board under warranty. I'm already doing the work for them and saving THEM money. I'm not about to break out my soldering irons, source, wait for and replace individual components. I'll save that for any failures after the warranty period.


I fully understand your position, it is certainly BusyBee's responsibility to deal with the faulty board and I would not expect to repair it in your position.  It is disgusting service.  Do you not have any consumer rights in Canada?  

For the benefit of others who may have the same KB Electronics type board and are out of warranty I have a link which may be of help and includes a circuit diagram, that can help with working out how the boards work.








						Variable speed controls
					

A FEW NOTES ON THE SPEED CONTROL BOARDS USED IN THE WM180,  FITTED TO MY DORE WESTBURY MILLING MACHINE AND USED IN "REAL BULL" MINI-LATHES . The speed control board in my lathe bears a sticker...



					andysmachines.weebly.com


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## Linz (Mar 9, 2021)

awake said:


> Linz, I hate that you are having so much trouble - and with a brand-new machine, to boot!
> 
> It doesn't help you at all to say this, but your experience will be a useful "marker" in the ever-continuing discussion of whether to buy old iron or new. One of the major arguments against old iron is having to do repairs. Well ... !
> 
> ...


I have no issues between old and new. Quality is quality and junk is junk regardless of age. The thing is, as quality goes up so does the price....exponentially. Usually, old worn junk, you can throw away. It's doubtful it would be worth the time or money to rebuild. Now, old quality iron is a different story. If you already own it the decision is easy, rebuild it (I'm speaking of course as a home hobbyist). The problem, otherwise, is the availability of old iron to acquire, especially here in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area. Our (my) little machines employ a fairly simple single phase ac supplied scr controlled dc drive output to a brushed dc motor, about as far removed from state-of-the-art as you can get. They are used manly because they are smaller, lighter and CHEAPER. 

CNC is a whole different ballgame. You can add a few stepper motors and a computer program to a home hobby mill and get some automated x,y.z axis movement, but a far cry from a production 5 or 8 axis full blown cnc machine. You are still restricted to the limitations of your little benchtop machines. I'm starting this hobby so I can tinker, learn a little and maybe make a few little things for myself. I'm not interested in running a computer program, pushing a button and returning later to retrieve my part. For simplicity I can always just go to the store or online and buy what I need. That would likely be the easiest and cheapest way to go for a higher quality part then you could produce at home.

Technology is great. Electronics, however, are like a light bulb. They're on, they fail, they're off. The trade off is they usually last a lot longer, require less maintenance and operate a lot more efficiently than what they've replaced.


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## Linz (Mar 9, 2021)

Richard,

I don't expect or need to be treated like a king. I would just like to get what I paid for. Also, maybe, being treated like they have a little appreciation for my contributing to THEIR livelihood, which as a customer I am doing. Not responding to or returning a call on a failed NEW machine just doesn't cut it. Saying your going to send parts right away but not doing it just doesn't cut it.

Awake & Richard,

Yes, several vendors sell the same or similar machines "rebranded" . Some add (or have the manufacturer add) there own little modifications and or upgrades as well. Some also perform pre-delivery inspections to ensure that the machine at least runs before sending it out the door. I don't think BusyBee does any of that.
I have heard some positive things on the Vendors you have mentioned as well. The problem is the Canadian peso to USD exchange along with the extremely high shipping costs puts the feasibility of purchasing these budget machines in the USA out the window.

I haven't read many positive reviews anywhere about Busybee. If they continually operate as has been with my experience, they would not survive long in the US. People have too many choices there. They could get away with it here because our choices are very limited. If you read the "About Us'" section on their website you would think they were God's gift to the Canadian Woodworking and Metalworking market. I find little of it to be true.

Paul135,

I think the only real right we have is to STFU. I'm not saying that they haven't done what they need to, legally, but I am totally dissatisfied with the way they have gone about it to this point.  Good link. That is a very similar setup.


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## Richard Hed (Mar 9, 2021)

Linz said:


> Richard,
> 
> I don't expect or need to be treated like a king. I would just like to get what I paid for. Also, maybe, being treated like they have a little appreciation for my contributing to THEIR livelihood, which as a customer I am doing. Not responding to or returning a call on a failed NEW machine just doesn't cut it. Saying your going to send parts right away but not doing it just doesn't cut it.
> 
> ...


If you were contributing to MY income, like you state, I WOULD treat you like a prince (not a king, the next in line for kinghood.)


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## Shopgeezer (Mar 10, 2021)

I suspect BB is suffering from Covid induced suppy chain shortages. Electronics producers scaled back production over the worst of the pandemic and these shortages are working their way through the system. I dealt with one manufacturer that took my order, communicated with me about lack of delivery and then dried up and stopped talking. Problem was there were no parts in the bin to send and their shipping system had no way of dealing with this. Nobody had ever been assigned to handle such a situation so they just stopped talking. Everyone had pushed the usual keys on the computer to send the order and that is all they knew how to do. It is certainly a test of a companies customer service. Most fail.  One supplier did talk to me and even suggested an alternate source for the part which I was able to order and receive. They get all my business from now on.


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## Linz (Mar 10, 2021)

Shopgeezer said:


> I suspect BB is suffering from Covid induced suppy chain shortages. Electronics producers scaled back production over the worst of the pandemic and these shortages are working their way through the system. I dealt with one manufacturer that took my order, communicated with me about lack of delivery and then dried up and stopped talking. Problem was there were no parts in the bin to send and their shipping system had no way of dealing with this. Nobody had ever been assigned to handle such a situation so they just stopped talking. Everyone had pushed the usual keys on the computer to send the order and that is all they knew how to do. It is certainly a test of a companies customer service. Most fail.  One supplier did talk to me and even suggested an alternate source for the part which I was able to order and receive. They get all my business from now on.


You can only blame so many things on Covid and poor customer service is not one of them. I only post my experiences here to assist others who may be having trouble with their Craftex CX-701 and to report on how the local (Edmonton BusyBee) and head office customer support operate and/or have treated my case. In the case of my failed lathe, I was certainly not about to load it up and return to the Edmonton store to have them ship it to Toronto to be repaired and shipped back in God knows how long from now. Exchange was not an option. Considered return for refund but the BusyBee rep (head office) told me they HAD the parts and would get them sent "RIGHT AWAY" when I told him I was willing to work with them to get the machine fixed. The outcome is mentioned in prior posts. Your right, those who make an effort get the business. Unfortunately, those who don't sometimes still do get some because of no other choice. I post my experience here to help others with their choice.


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## awake (Mar 10, 2021)

Linz, I agree - it is one thing to have someone be up front about supply problems, and apologetic and eager to help you find a way forward. It is another for someone to say, "oh well - have fun." It feels like someone has flipped you off - infuriating!


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## Linz (Mar 10, 2021)

Update: 

Despite several messages that bordered on begging and pleading for an update on my case, BusyBee never did return my calls. Yesterday afternoon I received a n e-mail from customer service saying they just sent the parts out. Nothing else, never addressed any of my concerns or questions. Despite saving them money(and being 3 weeks late), no extra mile here, they sent them Canada Post. Expected delivery next Tuesday, one month after they said they had the parts and were sending them right away.


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## SirJohn (Mar 11, 2021)

I have been debating on what make of mill to buy and now after reading al the horror stories of problems with motor speed controls on lathes and mills I am loosing confidence the VFD electronics.  My drill press and South Bend lathe  have virable speeds, just change a couple of belts, no electronics involved.  Does anyone still make a mill that isn't dependent on electronics to change the speed?  BusyBee and KMS are about the only suppliers of hobby sized mills that I am aware of in western Canada (Calgary) and from what I have read support appears to be non existent.  Is the failure rate of these speed controls as bad as it appears because I am willing to change a few belts rather than go through the headaches I have been reading about.


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## Richard Hed (Mar 11, 2021)

SirJohn said:


> I have been debating on what make of mill to buy and now after reading al the horror stories of problems with motor speed controls on lathes and mills I am loosing confidence the VFD electronics.  My drill press and South Bend lathe  have virable speeds, just change a couple of belts, no electronics involved.  Does anyone still make a mill that isn't dependent on electronics to change the speed?  BusyBee and KMS are about the only suppliers of hobby sized mills that I am aware of in western Canada (Calgary) and from what I have read support appears to be non existent.  Is the failure rate of these speed controls as bad as it appears because I am willing to change a few belts rather than go through the headaches I have been reading about.


Calgary is not that far from Bellingham, is it?  I don't know about import tax or any of that but y0u mighnt not have to pay state tax if you have ID from Canada which is substantial:  8%.  Also,there might be some mills that have the infinitely variable speed changers where you crank a lever.


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## Courierdog (Mar 11, 2021)

Calgary to Bellingham, WA 11 hr 3 min (943.0 km)


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## Richard Hed (Mar 11, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> Calgary to Bellingham, WA 11 hr 3 min (943.0 km)


Ah, well, that's an overnite job.  I had 5 hours each way.  But I can also stay in Tacoma, which I did, with relatives.


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## ajoeiam (Mar 12, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> Calgary is not that far from Bellingham, is it?  I don't know about import tax or any of that but y0u mighnt not have to pay state tax if you have ID from Canada which is substantial:  8%.  Also,there might be some mills that have the infinitely variable speed changers where you crank a lever.


If you pick up the sale is deemed to have occurred at point of sale - - - - you're paying tax!


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## goldstar31 (Mar 12, 2021)

We have 'the Real Bellingham' which is a delightful village on the North with a grave of a dead thief in the little churchyard. It is famously described as the Long Pack. 

It's just one of the tales of the  lawless Border between England and Scotland ad is earlier marked with the Roman Wall just to the South. 

You see I married a daughter of Liddesdale which is yet another story of Sir Walter Scott in his Waverley novels. Surprising it is not far  from the rocket range at Moscow. Different but quite true.

My RAF  Squadron used to 'bomb it'


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## oldengineguy (Mar 12, 2021)

Sir John :   I too have been reading the horror stories about electronic variable speed machines. I have a 3 year old BB CX 603 mill , belt speed change and no #%!electronic junk. Works VERY well. 270- 3260 RPM 220V 1phase 1.5 H.P. Only changes I made were new North American belts some cheap BB D R O's and to relocate the on/off switch to a more usable position . Had been thinking about a 701 lathe to replace my worn SB heavy 10 but will not  do that now. Colin


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## ajoeiam (Mar 13, 2021)

oldengineguy said:


> Sir John :   I too have been reading the horror stories about electronic variable speed machines. I have a 3 year old BB CX 603 mill , belt speed change and no #%!electronic junk. Works VERY well. 270- 3260 RPM 220V 1phase 1.5 H.P. Only changes I made were new North American belts some cheap BB D R O's and to relocate the on/off switch to a more usable position . Had been thinking about a 701 lathe to replace my worn SB heavy 10 but will not  do that now. Colin



Maybe time to find a 'less worn' SB heavy 10 or equivalent.

Warning - - - they move very quickly at in imo relatively high prices.
(Can find bigger machines in decent condition for far less money!)


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## goldstar31 (Mar 13, 2021)

I have no issue with your comments.  'WE" knew that it was about to happen. WE cancelled meetings and had a 'farewell party' to our friends and 'our Brothers'.
Where will it not end, but when like the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918- will it be 'acceptable'

It's cyclical like the Trade Cycle and it it is not the first nor-- as you rightly think about it not being the last.
I'm a Classics  or Grammar - perhaps sort of religious sort of guy-- and knew 'something would happen'

So I have the same hopes and fear as everyone else-------  and I look forward to my quarterly dividend  from AstraZeneneca who as we know has a successful vaccine against Covid-19

My sincerest good wishes  for your health to all. I sincerely hope that it works

Norman

I think that I have slipped between postings.
I'm partially  blind but my good wishes are  just as well meaning


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## packrat (Mar 13, 2021)

oldengineguy, You better hang on to that South Bend heavy 10, even with some wear they can make good parts, finding one is not so easy and the cost is out of sight..


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## goldstar31 (Mar 13, 2021)

packrat said:


> oldengineguy, You better hang on to that South Bend heavy 10, even with some wear they can make good parts, finding one is not so easy and the cost is out of sight..


As you say!   Your ML7 can be slideways ground s new for less than the cost of a Chinese lathe  with the risks of a circuit board failure. Again, I have no doubt that a South Bend  can be treated imilarly.

For both you still have their dedicated tools on shelf and  not to be replaced .
As far a I know, a ML7 can be reconditioned 6 times.
As I've. said, I have a Chinese lathe but it cost LESS than the minimum of reconditioning.
Worth thinking about, Do you agree?


Regards


Norman


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## Linz (Mar 13, 2021)

SirJohn said:


> I have been debating on what make of mill to buy and now after reading al the horror stories of problems with motor speed controls on lathes and mills I am loosing confidence the VFD electronics.  My drill press and South Bend lathe  have virable speeds, just change a couple of belts, no electronics involved.  Does anyone still make a mill that isn't dependent on electronics to change the speed?  BusyBee and KMS are about the only suppliers of hobby sized mills that I am aware of in western Canada (Calgary) and from what I have read support appears to be non existent.  Is the failure rate of these speed controls as bad as it appears because I am willing to change a few belts rather than go through the headaches I have been reading about.


The electronics are part and parcel with the DC motor models (variable speed control or not). There are various advantages and disadvantages between the DC, and AC single and 3 phase motor set-ups with or without a variable frequency drive. Electronics are great, they are everywhere. Can they fail? Yes, but everything can fail. I think heat and over driving (which can be one in the same) are the biggest enemies of our smaller home/hobby type machines. I'd be more concerned with where you buy from. As you mentioned, vendors of the cheap(er) home/hobby type machines are limited here in Alberta. Make sure you can get after sale support, service and/or parts. For me, BusyBee customer service is a failure. I don't know if KMS is any better but there are a lot of dealers who sell the King brand. I hope that once I get past the initial issue with the machine itself that things will hum along for several years with no problems. Some have reported they are happy with the Craftex machines after using for a couple years or more and I hope to be one as well.


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## tech610 (Mar 14, 2021)

oldengineguy said:


> I too have been reading the horror stories about electronic variable speed machines. I have a 3 year old BB CX 603 mill , belt speed change and no #%!electronic junk. Works VERY well. 270- 3260 RPM 220V 1phase 1.5 H.P. Only changes I made were new North American belts some cheap BB D R O's and to relocate the on/off switch to a more usable position . Had been thinking about a 701 lathe to replace my worn SB heavy 10 but will not  do that now. Colin


I totally agree with a loss of trust in reliability of electronic motor speed controls. I own HF 7x10 since 1999. I also own a Grizzly mini-mill. Both machines use electronic motor speed control. They fail if you overload them or stall simply by accidentally plunging your cutting tool too deep. You may get lucky and just blow the fuse, but if you blow the controller than you are looking at the very expensive replacement. I got sick and tired of it and I bought the only small lathe that doesn't use electronic motor control, Grizzly 9x20. Belts only! My mini-mill has a belt conversion, so I no longer worry about stalls.
Unfortunately the electronic motor speed control becoming standard with most new lathes.


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## Paul135 (Mar 15, 2021)

Linz said:


> The electronics are part and parcel with the DC motor models (variable speed control or not). There are various advantages and disadvantages between the DC, and AC single and 3 phase motor set-ups with or without a variable frequency drive. Electronics are great, they are everywhere. Can they fail? Yes, but everything can fail. I think heat and over driving (which can be one in the same) are the biggest enemies of our smaller home/hobby type machines. I'd be more concerned with where you buy from. As you mentioned, vendors of the cheap(er) home/hobby type machines are limited here in Alberta. Make sure you can get after sale support, service and/or parts. For me, BusyBee customer service is a failure. I don't know if KMS is any better but there are a lot of dealers who sell the King brand. I hope that once I get past the initial issue with the machine itself that things will hum along for several years with no problems. Some have reported they are happy with the Craftex machines after using for a couple years or more and I hope to be one as well.


I write the following hoping to help other new users with electronic DC motor speed control.  When I bought my lathe and mill which are similar to the CX machines discussed here, the supplier was most insistent that when starting the machine the speed potentiometer (knob) should be turn all the way to the minimum setting.  Then the machine is started and the speed increased to the setting desired.  Likewise when stopping the machine, turn the speed to minimum and switch off.  This was explained to avoid damage to the control board.  I wonder if this might be an inrush current problem that could overload the Triacs and power diodes, thus releasing magic smoke. 

Apart from the board failure that resulted in me changing to a genuine KB Electronics board, which I suspect was caused by water ingress from a leak in the roof from a storm, I have followed that advice and have trouble free operation.

I should mention that though I ordered the machines from the UK yet live in France, I did not really expect much support and after I found the Chinese control board faulty I preferred to find my own solution rather than have another of the same boards.

Paul


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## Richard Hed (Mar 15, 2021)

Paul135 said:


> I write the following hoping to help other new users with electronic DC motor speed control.  When I bought my lathe and mill which are similar to the CX machines discussed here, the supplier was most insistent that when starting the machine the speed potentiometer (knob) should be turn all the way to the minimum setting.  Then the machine is started and the speed increased to the setting desired.  Likewise when stopping the machine, turn the speed to minimum and switch off.  This was explained to avoid damage to the control board.  I wonder if this might be an inrush current problem that could overload the Triacs and power diodes, thus releasing magic smoke.
> 
> Apart from the board failure that resulted in me changing to a genuine KB Electronics board, which I suspect was caused by water ingress from a leak in the roof from a storm, I have followed that advice and have trouble free operation.
> 
> ...


good to know.  Hope I can remember this if I ever buy an electronically controlled machine.


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## goldstar31 (Mar 15, 2021)

Paul, I can only agree in part.  I have Two lathes of very similar size i.e. 3.5" radius  by 19 " and 8" x 16" diameter.

 The first is driven by an AC motor whilst the second- a Sieg is - with a funny knob.- and is DC via motherboard.

But the AC mootor  can- by belts drop its speed right down to 27 rpm whereas the the Sieg can only  do 100rpm and probbly it is 130Rpm.

In practical terms, I can 'swing' 10 whole inches being a Myford Super 7 with gearbox and power crossfeed in STEEL and the Sieg is blowing diodes at its restricted sweep of 8 inches. Whether it will actually cut that diameter is untried and remains a mystery of science.
I can tell you that The Sieg has a small vertical mill drill and  blew up on switching on.  Years ago- I still have the old motor was 1/4 1440Rpm  machine motor driving a Westbury mill drill.

This is my experience over more than 50 years will scrap AC motors.

My Myford motor is split phase but the spare is simply a stand 1440 continuously rated one.
The Sieg was TEN times cheaper than the Myford.

So your views and experiences will be intersting

Beat Wishes

Norman


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## petertha (Mar 15, 2021)

L98fiero said:


> Does anyone still make a mill that isn't dependent on electronics to change the speed?  BusyBee and KMS are about the only suppliers of hobby sized mills that I am aware of in western Canada (Calgary) and from what I have read support appears to be non existent.  Is the failure rate of these speed controls as bad as it appears because I am willing to change a few belts rather than go through the headaches I have been reading about.



Modern Tool in Calgary sells an RF-45 style mill which is manual gear change. Unfortunately not on their website but they will gladly send you a spec sheet PDF & price quote. I believe its a Chinese one but I've seen it run & actually sounded better than my (albeit '98) Taiwan King RF-45. Much quieter, same HP. I'm not sure what they did but I was moderately impressed. Modern is a big boy machine supply shop so the mills only get bigger from here. Next bigger is Taiwan 935 VS mill (which I have). If you live in Calgary, delivery is a breeze. Competent riggers, not Haulers-R-Us. Unlike the BB & King horror stories, they actually are tied to the factories & can get parts.





						Calgary, Alberta - Modern Tool Ltd.
					

Modern Tool Ltd. Head Office 11488 – 70th Street SE, Calgary, AB T2C 4Y3 Phone: (403) 236-1150 Fax: (403) 236-4277




					www.moderntool.com
				




I believe this is the smallest lathe they carry.





						New and Used Machine Tools in Canada | Modern Tool Ltd.
					

Modern Tool Ltd. offers new & used machine tools, leasing & delivery services. Serving Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Newmarket, ON, Saskatoon & Atlantic Canada.




					www.moderntool.com


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## Paul135 (Mar 15, 2021)

goldstar31 said:


> Paul, I can only agree in part.  I have Two lathes of very similar size i.e. 3.5" radius  by 19 " and 8" x 16" diameter.
> 
> The first is driven by an AC motor whilst the second- a Sieg is - with a funny knob.- and is DC via motherboard.
> 
> ...


Hi Norman, I don't know a great deal about the Sieg lathes other than what gets discussed on the Model Engineer magazine's website in the UK.  People seem very happy with them and also with what appears to be very good service from Arc Euro Trade. My own machines came from SPG Tools who were a regular Model Engineer site advertiser. 

When I discussed my needs and talked about wanting low speed for thread cutting, their response was "no problem we can retune the control board".  This they did (it is playing with the pots on the board) and I can get 30 rpm.  However the torque at this speed is not very good.

Your Myford has a backgear I presume that enables you to get the torque at the low speed so no probs.  However for my needs a Myford is far to small and I wanted the biggest bore through the head I could get.  Obviously with your AC motor the lathe could run for years and years.

Best wishes,

Paul


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## goldstar31 (Mar 15, 2021)

Thanks Paul- Merci Mille Fois!

The crux of the matter is can people cut steel at the maximum swing?    Several  Chinese lathes  did run at 100/130 rpm which too fast for facing and screwcutting

My views,, of course

Regards. 
N


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## Steamchick (Mar 16, 2021)

Having had 5 lathes: I still have a Unimat SL - but with ex-lawnmower universal motor and Chinese variable speed (£4). The other is a Chester's MF7 (or whatever) with variable speed that has foibles. (Needs the bearings to warm-up before the VSP stops "kicking" and trying to blow fuses).
But the simple principles are that I bought the Chester's lather because it would fit, and is definitely more precise than the previous old, worn, twisted bed - over-powered machines I previously owned.  I was prepared to sacrifice the torque available on the other lathes (Myford ML3 included) that had AC single phase 1/2HP motors, belt change gears and back-gearing so you could get down yo well less than 60rpm. BUT when cutting 6" flywheels from cast iron, if there was an inclusion or something hard in the outer "skin"  - I could see the lathe twist as the torque (via back gear) tried to take everything the belt could transmit before slipping... Not good for the soul. 
I CANNOT do anything much with the Chesters lathe with VFD as at 100 rpm or a bit below  it will only thread a 3/8in whit die at best. The 1/2" whit will stop it dead. - But it doesn't twist the bed and loose accuracy, it stalls if I cut badly or hit a hard scale with a parting tool on a 2" diameter hard steel shaft at the lowest speed, but is fine for all other machining. And much more accurate than all the other lathes I have owned. (I can drill a 0.25mm hole accurately with it from the tail-stock chuck! - that is a test of alignment and twisted beds!).
My message: Please respect the capabilities of your machine tools, as where they all have some deficiencies, they all have a lot of blessings as well (just like children). Care for them and respect what they can do, and find another way to do what they cannot. Then you'll share a long and happy life together. 
If you were rich enough, you would have various machines for various sizes of job. Just like a factory. But we all all constrained by various things, like money, time, personal ability, space, need, etc. so live with it. Maybe that is the real satisfaction of making some of the things we do... within the limitations of our own lives?
Sorry to prattle-on so long. There is just too much angst in some comments. Please understand "life's limitations". Go and cut a 0.001" diametrical cut on a 1 or 2" diameter steel bar for 6" or 8" between centres at very slow feed rate and relax... Then mic it and see how good it really is.  If you can do that then it's a pretty good lathe... If it is too slow or makes you feel impatient, choose another hobby.
K2.


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## goldstar31 (Mar 16, 2021)

Last night I was watching one of these Zoom lectures and this was on the Life and Times in HongKong given by one of our members/ brethren. Mention was made briefly of the Thoughts of Chairmen Mao who took China from abject poverty to literally attempting to take over industry.  The trick was to standardise factory production and undercut by out pricing the rest.
So we have standardised Chinese lathes which are adequate, cheap- but no development.  It is literally badge engineering reminiscent of the British Motor Corporation Minis from 1959
As the great man on valve gear said, there was people asking the same silly questions and getting the same silly answers.
To Hell with that, and my workshop is tailored to suit MY needs and I have got interchangeability between both lathes and the ancillary stuff too.
Apart from recent wild extravagance  getting a more reliable Myford for my future needs, the rest of the set up is either home made or at minimal cost. It can, as I said, do what I want.  For a 'none machinist',  my requests for help have been remarkably few.
 How to work this bloody ZOOM is another matter


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## Steamchick (Mar 16, 2021)

Hi Norman,
Remember the best compliment is mimicry, plagiarism, copying in any way... it's just that they do it on "a bowl of rice per day" and we need a "posh living".... Do you remember when the Dockers struck for £40 per week and my Dad was on less than half that as a skilled mechanic and machinist working Saturdays for the overtime as well? That was the thin-end of the wedge that partly caused the decline of industry in the West. We wanted the "Lucy-Ball" lifestyle for simple jobs. And we got it. But at what price?
I'll say no more for fear of the political police - we have passed 1984 and George Orville was dead right about "Big Brother" and "New Speak"!! You only have to write about "small nuclear devices" (e.g. like cells of living creatures) to be sure e-mails won't deliver.
- Hi Big Brother - I'm talking to you!
And a generation fought for the right of freedom of speech. (You were there).
Just fun.
K2


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## Steamchick (Mar 16, 2021)

I didn't mention that the disciplined people in society "do what is right and follow the rules" - but the sad, over-emotional, modern fashion is that every individual has a right to break the rules.... and they think it comes without punishment. The rules are there simply to define what is right or wrong - so we can all live together. The only rights anyone has are those that society has legislated to be right. Hence, governments find it necessary to police a Womens' March that the courts said was illegal in the present circumstances. If those women knew "their rights" they would not have broken the court order. And trying to curfew men is as sexist as anything else they can think of. Where's the equality in that? 
The world has lost it's direction, control of the people, and maybe sanity?
I'll back-off now... getting to "old and grumpy".
K2


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## L98fiero (Mar 16, 2021)

petertha said:


> Modern Tool in Calgary sells an RF-45 style mill which is manual gear change. Unfortunately not on their website but they will gladly send you a spec sheet PDF & price quote. I believe its a Chinese one but I've seen it run & actually sounded better than my (albeit '98) Taiwan King RF-45. Much quieter, same HP. I'm not sure what they did but I was moderately impressed. Modern is a big boy machine supply shop so the mills only get bigger from here. Next bigger is Taiwan 935 VS mill (which I have). If you live in Calgary, delivery is a breeze. Competent riggers, not Haulers-R-Us. Unlike the BB & King horror stories, they actually are tied to the factories & can get parts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Modern Tool also has a facility in Newmarket, Ontario


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## goldstar31 (Mar 16, 2021)

The Dockers' Strike?  I was on 4 Shillings a day as  'a boy in Air Force Blue at Hendon.  I'd sort of dofged the Berlin Airleft being a 'docker; and  going to Malaya as a Virgin soldier and the Red Fred was doing his thing in the London Docks and -- we we. were down for  living in bell tents at RAF North Weald' instead of Hendon.
Oddly, lt night, it was a Superintendent from HongKong Police giving the talk. Say no more about 'Spying'This was the time that the Berlin Wall was going up and the supposed non Russians were escaping. Ahem,  Ahem!


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## goldstar31 (Mar 16, 2021)

L98fiero said:


> Modern Tool also has a facility in Newmarket, Ontario


 But the stuff is 'all the same' but re-badged!

'Faclity' is from the french 'facile' to make it easier to be conned and spend money.
sorry but I'm too old an old crow to be shot just leaving the wood for the first time .


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## L98fiero (Mar 16, 2021)

goldstar31 said:


> But the stuff is 'all the same' but re-badged!
> 
> 'Faclity' is from the french 'facile' to make it easier to be conned and spend money.
> sorry but I'm too old an old crow to be shot just leaving the wood for the first time .


Well okay, a store, point being that it's 3400 kms closer to someone in Eastern Canada and in all likelihood, at least has access to the same stock.


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## Paul135 (Mar 16, 2021)

L98fiero said:


> Well okay, a store, point being that it's 3400 kms closer to someone in Eastern Canada and in all likelihood, at least has access to the same stock.


I took a look at the Modern Tool lathe in stock that was pointed out earlier .  Looks a nice machine, a belt and pulley version of the CX type lathes discussed here.  Take a look at its speed range though, it only goes down to 150rpm.  A bit hairy for for single point thread cutting from right to left on the work piece!    They do stock an awful lot of very nice machinery though.


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## Shopgeezer (Mar 16, 2021)

With all these electronic problems it would seem that the Busy Bee CX 707 12X36 lathe starts to look better. It is straight manual gear boxes. All those gears are heavy, the lathe weighs over 1200 lbs as opposed to the CX 706 at 500. Has anyone on this forum had experience with this lathe?


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## Richard Hed (Mar 16, 2021)

Steamchick said:


> I didn't mention that the disciplined people in society "do what is right and follow the rules" - but the sad, over-emotional, modern fashion is that every individual has a right to break the rules.... and they think it comes without punishment. The rules are there simply to define what is right or wrong - so we can all live together. The only rights anyone has are those that society has legislated to be right. Hence, governments find it necessary to police a Womens' March that the courts said was illegal in the present circumstances. If those women knew "their rights" they would not have broken the court order. And trying to curfew men is as sexist as anything else they can think of. Where's the equality in that?
> The world has lost it's direction, control of the people, and maybe sanity?
> I'll back-off now... getting to "old and grumpy".
> K2


No, that first sentence is incorrect.  Those that "follow the rules" do so out of fear.  Those who "do what is right" do so because "right" is not always anything whateveer to do with rules!  Doing what is right is often an act of courage AGAINST the rule makers and rule followers.  Often the rule followers are the dull who believe what the liars, politicians, preachers, judgementalists, opportunists, teachers and other slimeballs purport in order to support and keep their own illegitimate power.  Have you read "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion"?  It's an important docjument "discovered" in 1905, alledged to be written by a Jewish relative of mine.  Many Jewish believe it (or at least give lip service to) to be a hoax to make us look bad, but I, as a Jew, believe it to be genuine and don't approve of it's intent.  Whatever.  Read it and you will be horrified to discouver that the predictions have ALL come to pass:  We (whoever that is?) now own the politicians, the police, the education sysstem, the news and print media, the military, the factories, prisons, judges, lawyers, doctors and anything else that is used to control, influence, keep alive, kill, propagandize, instill fear, build distrust, etc., etc., etc.  

Well, didn't I say in another post that the most dangerous man alive is Baron X in London?  Well, let me tell you it has nothing to do with him being Jewish, it has to do with him being an international BANKSTER!  The other guilty are those who own the bank of london, the FED, the international banks of Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and all other countries.  These people's declared values are:  I care not who runs the country, just give me the control of the banks!  Another book that should be on your reading list:  The Creature from Jekel Island.  (Jekel sp.?)  

You say the world has lost it's direction.  I agree, however, the "Protocols" clearly states that this is one of their objectives, to give a world so directionless, so in upheaval, so at war with nothing but lies that ultimately, the people will be begging them to take over with a "King".  Well, this is all fine, as long as  . . . (drum roll) . . . I . . . (trumpets) . . . am . . . (Beethoven's Ode to Joy) . . .  that . . . (Handel's Messiah) . . . KING!  Do you thimpfk I have a chance at becoming that king?  Not a bit!

BTW, I thimpfk your use of the word 'punishment' should be replaced with "consequences".


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## djswain1 (Mar 17, 2021)

Richard Hed said:


> No, that first sentence is incorrect.  Those that "follow the rules" do so out of fear.  Those who "do what is right" do so because "right" is not always anything whateveer to do with rules!  Doing what is right is often an act of courage AGAINST the rule makers and rule followers.  Often the rule followers are the dull who believe what the liars, politicians, preachers, judgementalists, opportunists, teachers and other slimeballs purport in order to support and keep their own illegitimate power.  Have you read "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion"?  It's an important docjument "discovered" in 1905, alledged to be written by a Jewish relative of mine.  Many Jewish believe it (or at least give lip service to) to be a hoax to make us look bad, but I, as a Jew, believe it to be genuine and don't approve of it's intent.  Whatever.  Read it and you will be horrified to discouver that the predictions have ALL come to pass:  We (whoever that is?) now own the politicians, the police, the education sysstem, the news and print media, the military, the factories, prisons, judges, lawyers, doctors and anything else that is used to control, influence, keep alive, kill, propagandize, instill fear, build distrust, etc., etc., etc.
> 
> Well, didn't I say in another post that the most dangerous man alive is Baron X in London?  Well, let me tell you it has nothing to do with him being Jewish, it has to do with him being an international BANKSTER!  The other guilty are those who own the bank of london, the FED, the international banks of Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and all other countries.  These people's declared values are:  I care not who runs the country, just give me the control of the banks!  Another book that should be on your reading list:  The Creature from Jekel Island.  (Jekel sp.?)
> 
> ...


I thought this was thread about lathes...


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## Richard Hed (Mar 17, 2021)

djswain1 said:


> I thought this was thread about lathes...


Oh, just got a bit carried away.


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## Steamchick (Mar 17, 2021)

Sorry djswain.. my fault. - having a bad lock-down perhaps? But no excuses. I was out of order for your thread. I just get a bit rattled sometimes at the use of "Common sense"... wherever it appears, as it seems that people are irrational sometimes, and that seems to be the "commonest" of all.
Back to lathes: Paul: When you want a thread to a blind end, reverse the lathe and tools to machine from the blind-end to the open end for cutting the thread. - Like UN-screwing a nut! (My wife - and probably some readers -  would love to find out which way to turn me to "Unscrew my Nut"!). 
K2


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## Linz (Mar 17, 2021)

The replacement control board for my new 701 has arrived so with any luck I might see it spin by days' end.


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## Steamchick (Mar 17, 2021)

Hi Linz, It Seems like today's consumables are "electronic boards".... And I thought 20 years for my Philips Tape recorder from 1976 was good, but could last longer before all the boards gave-up all their "smoke"... It's true that the smoke either comes out rapidly so you see it, or leaks out with time - invisibly - so when they are empty of smoke the plastic lumps on the circuit boards don't do anything...
One day we'll figure it out. 
Makes me wonder though, if the USA president had to "push the button", would anything happen with the older stuff? - or has all the electronic smoke just leaked away?
I have lots of old gear that doesn't turn ON when powered-up. Awaiting the re-opening of the tip before I can get rid...
Thinking of the electronic smoke leaking out... for 50 years or more we have been throwing electronic stuff up into space around the planet, which has been bombarded by cosmic rays... which make holes in the electronics - so the smoke leaks out faster... So is there just lots of old junk up there whirling around us looking for a nice place to fall onto? - I guess so. Like 100 years ago... you won't see the one that hits you!
On that crazy note... Enjoy your new board!
K2


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## Paul135 (Mar 17, 2021)

Steamchick said:


> Hi Linz, It Seems like today's consumables are "electronic boards".... And I thought 20 years for my Philips Tape recorder from 1976 was good, but could last longer before all the boards gave-up all their "smoke"... It's true that the smoke either comes out rapidly so you see it, or leaks out with time - invisibly - so when they are empty of smoke the plastic lumps on the circuit boards don't do anything...
> One day we'll figure it out.
> Makes me wonder though, if the USA president had to "push the button", would anything happen with the older stuff? - or has all the electronic smoke just leaked away?
> I have lots of old gear that doesn't turn ON when powered-up. Awaiting the re-opening of the tip before I can get rid...
> ...


A lot of old electronics does not seem to turn on due to the electrolytic capacitors. They go bad with age effectively drying out, some spilling out their liquid.gel.  I have rebuilt quite a few power supplies and recapped motherboards etc to restore electronic equipment and computers.


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## Richard Hed (Mar 17, 2021)

Paul135 said:


> A lot of old electronics does not seem to turn on due to the electrolytic capacitors. They go bad with age effectively drying out, some spilling out their liquid.gel.  I have rebuilt quite a few power supplies and recapped motherboards etc to restore electronic equipment and computers.



Thank yew for that.  Something I didn't know.


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## goldstar31 (Mar 17, 2021)

I'm an old - once very capable- cost  accountant.   It one allows for the replacement of ONE dud board, buying an old UK lathe or an American one  for reconditioning seems eminently preferable.


I discussed the purchase of a Myford ML7 by a contributor here and allowing for a slideways grind etc, the cost seemed to favour the restoration of the ML7 and perhaps a faithful old American machine..


I got to the rough( very rought) costing of a reconditioned Myford Super 7- arguably built like a battleship and the new price of a 8 x16 lathe and adding the cost of a  blown board. 

I know wherte I would go and-- actually went

Best Wishes


Norman


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## Steamchick (Mar 17, 2021)

Thanks Paul. And I had been taught it was "smoke leaking out" that caused all the electronics to stop working. Maybe the gel is condensed smoke? I have seen sticky stuff that has bled from dry cells when they have died... but not from capacitors.
The 2 types of capacitors made in a factory where I worked as a young engineer were high voltage types for phase correction on long overhead power lines, that used paper and oil insulation with aluminium foil plates, and the other sort used polymer insulation and foil wrapped in aluminium cans for fluorescent lamp-ballast inductive compensation. None of these were filled with smoke, so I assumed it was diodes and transistors full of smoke that could leak and fail. I have had a good few of those in devices I have owned. Especially thryristors. They can get quite hot when the smoke leaks out of them....
K2


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## Richard Hed (Mar 17, 2021)

Steamchick said:


> Thanks Paul. And I had been taught it was "smoke leaking out" that caused all the electronics to stop working. Maybe the gel is condensed smoke? I have seen sticky stuff that has bled from dry cells when they have died... but not from capacitors.
> The 2 types of capacitors made in a factory where I worked as a young engineer were high voltage types for phase correction on long overhead power lines, that used paper and oil insulation with aluminium foil plates, and the other sort used polymer insulation and foil wrapped in aluminium cans for fluorescent lamp-ballast inductive compensation. None of these were filled with smoke, so I assumed it was diodes and transistors full of smoke that could leak and fail. I have had a good few of those in devices I have owned. Especially thryristors. They can get quite hot when the smoke leaks out of them....
> K2


My experience with caps is that they rarely fail unless they are made in China which then, you would not have any idea how good or bad they are.  I have had three fail in the Philippines where the culture is:  Oh, this *item* will do whatever you want, including stand on it's head, fly to the moon, do germ culture, is halal, kosher and acceptable to Bhuddist dietary law, and many other things.  It's as if people of the educated west are totally stupid and ignorant.  In America, I thimpfk I have NEVER had a cap fail.  However, I repaired one old radio from the 30's that needed new caps.


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## goldstar31 (Mar 17, 2021)

As I said, I added a mill drill assembly to my Sieg C4- a Chinese 8 x16 and  the mother board failed on the initial switch on.  True, it was replaced under warrantee--- but it failed on switch on.
I can only assume that the quality controller -- wasn't.

As  most will appreciate, the foregoing was my action as best as I was able NOT to alienate my rights under the appropriate sale of goods acts appropriate to the United  KIngdom.
What the law decrees in other countries must wisely be regarded as 'unknown'


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## Linz (Mar 17, 2021)

Earlier today I bench tested the new replacement control board prior to installing on the 701. I used the old VSC pot which tested good on the meter and performed properly with the new board. So, as expected, it was the control board that was faulty on the new machine. The DC output on the new board arrived set to the max of 130volts so I dialed it back to 90VDC via the Max trim pot. Incidentally, I think this trim pot may have been the culprit on the failed board. 

Originally, my machine was not wired as per the manual schematic or the hand drawn one that I received from the BusyBee tech. I used a composite of the 3 as I saw best fit the requirements. After re-installing all the electrics in the machine the lathe is now up and running, at least free spinning with no load. It won't be until next week that I can reassemble, the carriage and tailstock parts that were removed for an initial cleaning, and perform the chuck run-out and headstock/tailstock alignment procedures.


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## Paul135 (Mar 18, 2021)

Linz said:


> Earlier today I bench tested the new replacement control board prior to installing on the 701. I used the old VSC pot which tested good on the meter and performed properly with the new board. So, as expected, it was the control board that was faulty on the new machine. The DC output on the new board arrived set to the max of 130volts so I dialed it back to 90VDC via the Max trim pot. Incidentally, I think this trim pot may have been the culprit on the failed board.
> 
> Originally, my machine was not wired as per the manual schematic or the hand drawn one that I received from the BusyBee tech. I used a composite of the 3 as I saw best fit the requirements. After re-installing all the electrics in the machine the lathe is now up and running, at least free spinning with no load. It won't be until next week that I can reassemble, the carriage and tailstock parts that were removed for an initial cleaning, and perform the chuck run-out and headstock/tailstock alignment procedures.


Congratulations on getting the lathe running.  Can you confirm please which board you got sent as the replacement?  Is it a genuine KB electronics board?  I ask from the point of view that there will be other CX lathe users reading this thread.  My own experience of the KB board, which I replaced a Chinese copy with has been good. Have you got the additional KB heat sink that this board can be bolted to?  If not this could be a good mod to do to further prolong the life of the board. I believe from various internet reports that in the UK the Warco lathes use this board as well and these lathes are normally reported as very reliable.

When you have done your reassembly, could you post your findings please on run-out and alignment?

Paul


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## Steamchick (Mar 18, 2021)

My 1976 Philips tape deck regularly failed the Caps... and my Philips TV is on the 3rd or 4th Power supply - as their caps fail after 5 years or so.... I even bought some caps to do it myself - until I looked indie and didn't know where to start! Otherwise, no problems.
But my speed control on the lathe should be 110rpm to 1250 rpm...it is actually 70 rpm to 1650 rpm - but makes a LOUD "sputtering" noise above 1200 rpm!! - it sounds like major flash-over... but no smoke, so what could be happening? It has blown a few fuses on the mains (13A) and internally (10A - fast blow? - or maybe slow-blow - for the motor?), hardly ever on-load. The start-stop buttons went O-C, so I replaced the unit - with a cheap (£3) Chinese unit that was the only available option. But the variable speed still hasn't lost all its "electronic smoke" though I am sure it must be getting close to empty... by now. Do I buy a replacement board before all the smoke leaks away? - Maybe that would be a good idea... But where to get a good board, not a Chinese board? £70 for a complete Chinese VFD unit that would do the job - but need to re-wire the lathe.
K2


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## Paul135 (Mar 18, 2021)

Steamchick said:


> My 1976 Philips tape deck regularly failed the Caps... and my Philips TV is on the 3rd or 4th Power supply - as their caps fail after 5 years or so.... I even bought some caps to do it myself - until I looked indie and didn't know where to start! Otherwise, no problems.
> But my speed control on the lathe should be 110rpm to 1250 rpm...it is actually 70 rpm to 1650 rpm - but makes a LOUD "sputtering" noise above 1200 rpm!! - it sounds like major flash-over... but no smoke, so what could be happening? It has blown a few fuses on the mains (13A) and internally (10A - fast blow? - or maybe slow-blow - for the motor?), hardly ever on-load. The start-stop buttons went O-C, so I replaced the unit - with a cheap (£3) Chinese unit that was the only available option. But the variable speed still hasn't lost all its "electronic smoke" though I am sure it must be getting close to empty... by now. Do I buy a replacement board before all the smoke leaks away? - Maybe that would be a good idea... But where to get a good board, not a Chinese board? £70 for a complete Chinese VFD unit that would do the job - but need to re-wire the lathe.
> K2


Hi K2,  are you sure it is the board and not the brushes on the motor?  For a new board have a look here:





						Shop the KBIC Inverter range.
					

KBIC-240D (9464) DC Motor Speed Controller 115/230V AC Input, 90/180V DC Output, 6 / 12 Amps.  The KBIC DC motor speed controller range are suitable for permanent magnet & shunt wound DC motors up to 3 horsepower.




					www.axiscontrols.co.uk
				



I bought the KB board for my lathe there, very fast delivery.  KB if I remember right are in Florida and the boards are supposed to be made in the USA.  They are well made in any case.  I would recommend the auxiliary heat sink KB offer.

Paul


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## trlvn (Mar 18, 2021)

Linz said:


> The replacement control board for my new 701 has arrived so with any luck I might see it spin by days' end.


Was there any charge to you for the board or shipping or was it completely covered under warranty?  What shipping method did they use?

Craig


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## Courierdog (Mar 19, 2021)

I worked on High Power Transmitters and many of the high voltage capacitors had a very toxic oil in them. You did not want to be around when one developed a leak or worse when one exploded. Getting a dose of the oil in a gas state was fatal. I had to pull on a person when it happened and please note all these capacitors were made here in North America, no import equipment was used in these old Transmitters, 50 Kw or better, In Canada we had to cut the power back to 50KW as that is our maximum allowable power output.
I dropped a screw driver once, it fell into the high voltage cage, there was a bright light for about three seconds then total darkness. oops
No evidence was ever discovered, and yes 2 seconds later the capacitor bank recovered and the lights came back on.


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## Richard Hed (Mar 19, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> I worked on High Power Transmitters and many of the high voltage capacitors had a very toxic oil in them. You did not want to be around when one developed a leak or worse when one exploded. Getting a dose of the oil in a gas state was fatal. I had to pull on a person when it happened and please note all these capacitors were made here in North America, no import equipment was used in these old Transmitters, 50 Kw or better, In Canada we had to cut the power back to 50KW as that is our maximum allowable power output.
> I dropped a screw driver once, it fell into the high voltage cage, there was a bright light for about three seconds then total darkness. oops
> No evidence was ever discovered, and yes 2 seconds later the capacitor bank recovered and the lights came back on.


A town I lived in once had a kat get into a powerstation, the only thing left fo the cat was fur.  The lights were off for 4-5 hours while something was being repaired.  I'm surpized you didn't go blind from looking at that bright light.


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## BaronJ (Mar 19, 2021)

Steamchick said:


> My 1976 Philips tape deck regularly failed the Caps... and my Philips TV is on the 3rd or 4th Power supply - as their caps fail after 5 years or so.... I even bought some caps to do it myself - until I looked indie and didn't know where to start! Otherwise, no problems.
> But my speed control on the lathe should be 110rpm to 1250 rpm...it is actually 70 rpm to 1650 rpm - but makes a LOUD "sputtering" noise above 1200 rpm!! - it sounds like major flash-over... but no smoke, so what could be happening? It has blown a few fuses on the mains (13A) and internally (10A - fast blow? - or maybe slow-blow - for the motor?), hardly ever on-load. The start-stop buttons went O-C, so I replaced the unit - with a cheap (£3) Chinese unit that was the only available option. But the variable speed still hasn't lost all its "electronic smoke" though I am sure it must be getting close to empty... by now. Do I buy a replacement board before all the smoke leaks away? - Maybe that would be a good idea... But where to get a good board, not a Chinese board? £70 for a complete Chinese VFD unit that would do the job - but need to re-wire the lathe.
> K2



Hi Ken,

Look closely at the motor brushes !  They are a very common source of problems with failed motors and particularly control boards.


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## BaronJ (Mar 19, 2021)

Courierdog said:


> I worked on High Power Transmitters and many of the high voltage capacitors had a very toxic oil in them. You did not want to be around when one developed a leak or worse when one exploded. Getting a dose of the oil in a gas state was fatal. I had to pull on a person when it happened and please note all these capacitors were made here in North America, no import equipment was used in these old Transmitters, 50 Kw or better, In Canada we had to cut the power back to 50KW as that is our maximum allowable power output.
> I dropped a screw driver once, it fell into the high voltage cage, there was a bright light for about three seconds then total darkness. oops
> No evidence was ever discovered, and yes 2 seconds later the capacitor bank recovered and the lights came back on.



Yes, I'm vary aware of the "Poly Chlorinated Biphenol's" in those oil filled capacitors.  You cannot burn them or remove the oil, you cannot bury them unless you enclose them in concrete.


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## Steamchick (Mar 20, 2021)

Thanks Baron. I contacted the "shop" (Industrial unit with no-one home during the pandemic) and a helpful engineer told me how to easily get the motor out and check the brushes. I have ordered new ones. Upon examination I reckon the routing of the brush wire is such that it "holds" the brush against spring pressure, when the brush is about half-worn (30mm => 13mm). A simple tweak of that wire and the brush developed "full pressure" on the commutator - but I can wait and fit the new brushes - with wire situated to use all the brush - then maybe when I am dead and burned someone else can spend a "quick few minutes" (2 hours) fitting new brushes.
It took me a lot longer than expected because the lathes have a long cable so the motor can be removed without disconnecting the wires, yet an Earth wire (compulsory in Europe and UK - not China) - added by the UK importer from the look of it - was too short to get the motor out. So I squeezed a pair of wire cutters in the gap and cut the wire, then spent a happy hour trying to get 2 hands and a soldering iron into a blind hole to join on a longer earth wire... So the "Chinese" bit was OK - The UK addition not so....
Ho hum. It's fixed now. Come on Postman - I want my new brushes!
Next question: To avoid dismantling the motor for cleaning brushes, is it OK to wash away surplus carbon with aerosol Brake cleaner? (Trichloro-whatever is safe enough to sell!)? Looks like a good idea, but maybe it will de-grease the bearings?
K2


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## ShopShoe (Mar 20, 2021)

Here in the USA, the manufacturers of the brake cleaner also make an automotive electrical cleaner for cleaning starters, alternators, etc. for service. I haven't bought any for a few years and I don't know if it's still available or what's in it.  Maybe there is a similar product available where you are. There's also the "contact cleaner" from electronics suppliers. 

--ShopShoe


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## BaronJ (Mar 20, 2021)

Hi Guys,

I've never used any solvents in the manner that you describe !  The most I've ever done is to blow the motor clean with air.  I've skimmed commutators that have been solid with carbon dust and undercut the mica.  Not an easy job and very messy.

Personally  I wouldn't use them.


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## Steamchick (Mar 21, 2021)

Thanks, I carefully blew some loose dust away... the commutator was pretty clean - but I know carbon dust is a great one for starting a flash-over. Commutators are essentially low speed devices - which we use on high-speed motors...  which is why we smell Ozone from them when arcing begins. I wonder if the controller is trying to shut-off every time the commutator flashes over (Instant current surge - no back-emf!) as if it is delivering DC to the motor instead of AC then there is no "zero-point" to break an arc. I don't know what is happening there - just worked on H-V circuit breakers for 4 years as an Engineer - so understand a tiny bit about arc destruction in AC inductive circuits. Commutators are not designed for arc destruction... more like arc propagation, the faster they go!
The motor runs OK with new brushes, but I have lost the drive belt... Don't ask how - I blame the gremlins... Maybe the new brushes have made the Gemlins homeless in the motor, so they have stolen the drive belt and hidden it in revenge? 10 minutes fitting brushes, 10 minutes fitting the motor back onto the lathe - and 2 hours scouring the garage for the drive belt.... Is this Insanity? Senility? just simple stupidity? - just daily life for me....
It is going to spoil my Sunday if it doesn't turn up today.
Cheers guys!
"Have a nice day"
K2


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## BaronJ (Mar 21, 2021)

Hi Guys,

Yes I do tricks like that !  Put stuff in that safe place so that I know where it is, but where was the safe place !!!

The belt is in the same place that you moved it to   Evil Gremlins.


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## Shopgeezer (Mar 21, 2021)

The drive belt is wherever you picked something else up. It’s the packrat syndrome, you drop what you are carrying to pick something else up. I once tore the house and shop apart looking for a bearing housing that completely disappeared. I found it in the refrigerator.


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## awake (Mar 21, 2021)

Shopgeezer said:


> The drive belt is wherever you picked something else up. It’s the packrat syndrome, you drop what you are carrying to pick something else up. I once tore the house and shop apart looking for a bearing housing that completely disappeared. I found it in the refrigerator.


That makes perfect sense - you were heating the casing that the bearing would go into while you were chilling the bearing, right?


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## Shopgeezer (Mar 21, 2021)

Yes that’s my story.  Actually I put it down when I got a beer out of the fridge.


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## awake (Mar 21, 2021)

Shopgeezer said:


> Yes that’s my story.  Actually I put it down when I got a beer out of the fridge.



Beer, huh? I've heard of using dry ice in an alcohol bath to cool parts for a shrink fit, but never thought of trying that with beer.

Oh, wait - you were _drinking_ the beer? Never mind, carry on ...


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## Steamchick (Mar 21, 2021)

Found it - in a biscuit tin full of boiler burner spares... Another project I am doing while I was awaiting the brushes.
Should have gone for a beer, then I would have found it later!
K2


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## Poppy Ott (Mar 21, 2021)

On more than one occasion I have managed to ‘lose’ the micrometer without taking one step away from the lathe.


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## Steamchick (Mar 22, 2021)

I slept well last night. Today I'll make some more no 8 jets (0.25mm diameter jet), a couple of venturis, and maybe ceramic burner or 2. I need to sell 1 a month to have a"kitty" for tools, after costs. If I need a new Variable Speed Board for the lathe it's a tidy £130... so I need to sell a lot of burners!
I read about the use of PM Brush motors with speed control (DC), compared to field coil types of universal motor (AC). Ill be checking today, but I think mine is a DC PM Motor. But there has also been discussion between single phase AC and 3 phase AC - with variable speed. 
However, to suit me, I should like to understand the advantages/differences between comparable 3-phase variable speed and DC PM with variable speed. Does the 3-phase variable speed have higher or lower torque at low speed? Does the 3-phase variable speed have a wider speed range than the DC PM Motor - that seems to be limited by Brush "flash-over" - or some switching that is causing high voltage spikes? Not understanding these things tells me not to change - but if the variable speed unit decides to loose all the "electronic internal smoke" I shall have a large bill - or need to find an alternative? 
What do you guys know? - I suspect the lathe is built with a compromise to get what it does with the cheapest option...
Ta,
K2


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## goldstar31 (Mar 22, 2021)

Goodmorning Ken.

The question seems to hinge on the Sale of Goods Acts of what is 'merchantable quality'  and how longer a guarantee/warrantee was implied when you bought your lathe. I'm not 'shot gunning\ overall but precisely what the terms were on the electrical parts. 
As I reported earlier,  my Sieg circuit board  for the vertical mill column milling attachment failed quicker than immediately.
No doubt a question to the seller of the new lathe would go a long way to clarfy the issue.

Best Wishes
Norman


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## Steamchick (Mar 22, 2021)

The helpful guy at Chester Machine tools had explained to me what the Variable Speed board does so I can check it and see if I'm trying to send too many volts to the motor... and adjust the pot if necessary. If I get it wrong - "It has been good corresponding with you all" - as I shall be the charred looking thing next to the lathe! - I'll wear my wellies and rubber gloves!

K2


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## awake (Mar 22, 2021)

Just to complicate things - in addition to AC motors and permanent magnet brushed DC motors, there are also brushless DC motors which require a special control board. As I understand it - which is not very much! - these are somewhat analogous to a 3-phase motor on a VFD. I have now completed the entire information dump of everything I know ...


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## BaronJ (Mar 22, 2021)

Hi Ken,



> However, to suit me, I should like to understand the advantages/differences between comparable 3-phase variable speed and DC PM with variable speed. Does the 3-phase variable speed have higher or lower torque at low speed? Does the 3-phase variable speed have a wider speed range than the DC PM Motor -



To answer your questions you need to understand that both single and three phase induction motors speed is a function of the voltage supply frequency and the number of poles.

All induction motors are rated at a specific supply frequency.  Within a quite small tolerance band the output power and hence torque will be at the rated figure.  As the frequency moves away from the specified supply value the power output falls off.

In the case of three phase speed control the output power falls of more rapidly as the frequency is reduced and the motor gets slower.  Some VFD compensate for this by raising the voltage supplied to the motor.  The downside of this is without additional cooling the motor can overheat and fail.  Normally you wouldn't run the motor at 25 Hz for any length of time, nor would you want to run the motor at 125 Hz for any length of time either.

So the answer to your second question is yes the DC variable speed motor does have a much greater speed and power range than and equivalent power three phase motor. 

A DC motors speed is a function of the amount of voltage that is supplied to it, irrespective of whether it uses field coils or a permanent magnet.  The use of a PM field has the advantage of cost and physical size, resulting in a smaller frame for the power rating.  Again the downside is heat !  The only way the heat can escape from a PM motor is by conduction through the bearings and forced air through the motor.  So PM motors tend to run hotter than the equivalent AC motor.


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## BaronJ (Mar 22, 2021)

Hi Andy,

Yes, you are right !  BLDC motors are fundamentally three or more phase machines and do require a special controller.

A BLDC motor could have as many as twelve phases depending upon the duty that it has been designed for.  The controller is as you suggest akin to a VFD as it can offer variable motor speed control.

These motors and the controllers can be found on just about every hard disc drive made in the past 20 years or so.  Primarily used because the rotational speed can be very precisely controlled often using a quartz crystal.


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## awake (Mar 22, 2021)

See, I knew that I knew enough to be dangerous! 

I have seen BLDC motors starting to show up on some smaller machines where a permanent magnet brushed DC motor might have been in the past. I'm guessing the extra complexity of the controller is no longer much of an issue - maybe there is a single-chip solution that takes care of it.

Actually ... I have a fuzzy memory ... are tiny BLDC's often used in drones?


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## BWMSBLDR1 (Mar 22, 2021)

How about a description of the belt? I found a perfect replacment for my unimat sl belts at Horrid Fright disguised as a $5 belt for a rock tumbler!   Bill in Boulder CO USA


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