Midi Lathe upgrade

[warrick]

Some of you may remember a recent post of mine where I upgraded my Vicmarc to variable speed, well I couldn't help myself so I upgraded my recently purchased S/H Sherwood midi lathe


Rick



Here is what it was when mounted to the mobile stand I built for it

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I went out on council pick up and checked Freecycle to source the treadmill motor and controller. I scored 4 treadmills in total, one had the easy converted controller and another had a keyed drive shaft the matched the pulley perfectly
I then set about drawing up a circuit to suit and ordered some bits from china. While waiting for those bits to arrive I gave it a new paint job to match the Vicmarc and designed a control panel to be cut out on the cnc.
The end result below, I am very happy with how it turned out, the actual cost to me for the upgrade would be about $30 (The initial cost of the lathe was $250 which included a chuck, some turning tools, a pen spindle and some timber)

Here are the photos after the upgrade

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The headstock Logo
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The control panel
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The new motor
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Next to big brother :)
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[Asmiketurns]

I am jealous. In addition to wood turning I cast my own bullets. A few years ago there were some guys selling temperatures controls for the casting pot that allowed you to set your temperature and it would keep it there. They sold bunches of them in reloading forums. Depending on how hard it is to install maybe you should look into it for lathes. I know I would be interested


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[warrick]

I am jealous. In addition to wood turning I cast my own bullets. A few years ago there were some guys selling temperatures controls for the casting pot that allowed you to set your temperature and it would keep it there. They sold bunches of them in reloading forums. Depending on how hard it is to install maybe you should look into it for lathes. I know I would be interested


Temp controls/thermostats work a different way, they turn the power off and on and are controlled by a thermal switch, dc motors are controlled by varying the voltage. This is why I used the controller that came in the treadmill, you can get commercially made controllers but they cost money. This project was about reusing parts of a piece of equipment that someone else had thrown away i.e. the treadmill

Rick