Cx701 lathe report

[Brian Rupnow]

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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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.

 

[canadianhorsepower]

) 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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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

 

[tomrux]

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

 

[canadianhorsepower]

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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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--

 

[Swifty]

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.

 

[kiwi2]

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.

 

[Swifty]

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.

 

[Journeyman]

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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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.

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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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".

 

[canadianhorsepower]

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.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Two minutes with a zip wheel slayed that dragon.

 

[bazmak]

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

 

[Brian Rupnow]

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.

 

[Swifty]

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.