In article ,
Bill Schwab wrote:

Joe,

[snip]
Gently prodding some of the headstock levers, they appear to be a little
stubborn at times. Hopefully I have been clever enough to avoid
breaking it, but let me know if I should be worried about levers that
appear not to want to move to specific positions. I am assuming that
much of it is gear teeth in the way, and that one would move the spindle
to obtain favorable alignment???

That was my experience with the Clausing 5914. I worried that this and
that was stuck/broken, but after reading the manual and understanding
the interlocks, all was well.

Good. I suspect it is fine, but waiting is tough. Waiting? Well, I
was snagged by work, both on the customer service and self-interest
fronts, and I am fighting (well by comparison to others) a fairly
unusual cold, so I'm not in at top efficiency.


I have yet to put power to it; there
are wiring puzzles to ponder before I can safely do that.

VFDs are also useful for trying thing out - just start with the drive
frequency at zero, and slowly ramp the speed up manually. If anything
balks, the motor will just stop, and no harm will be done.

Interesting. Any constraints on the type? I ask because a mill I am
considering for the future is said to run only with rotary converters????

I think any VFD can run right down to zero speed. If the VFD is capable
of sensorless vector control, which greatly increases torque at low
speeds, turn this feature off until you know that things work OK.

What mill would that be? The only reason I can imagine for a mill to be
rotary converter only is that it has more than just the spindle motor
being powered.

There have been long discussions of how to rewire a mill so the motor
could be VFD controlled without affecting the other stuff. Basically,
one runs the other stuff on single phase. The fly in the ointment is if
such things as coolant pumps are truly three phase.

In any event, any ~220 volt 50 or 50 Hz three-phase motor can be driven
by a VFD. It is not required that motor Hz and prime power Hz be the
same with a VFD. The VFD must be derated by a factor of about two if
the prime power is single phase.


I have
hydraulic oil on hand, but have yet to transfer the 3 GALLONS it is
supposed to hold ~:0

Three gallons?

That's what the techs tell me. We'll see.

I've forgotten - what make and model lathe is this?

Three gallons sounds more like a coolant tank.


Joe Gwinn