Thread: Wow - huge price difference

Yep, I bought one too a while ago. Fraction of the jaycar price delivered to my door. They work well too.

Yes me too

I purchased one from Asia two years ago. It seems to do the job well. Handy gadget to have . I calibrated the DM 45 mill drill and the Sheraton lathe . Mike

I was stunned by the price difference. Talk about gouging.

I intend to use mine as a built in tachometer on my lathe.

I'm converting it to variable speed using a 2 HP 180 v DC motor and a KBIC-240DS controller (ex USA).

The idea is that you gut the tacho, take the laser and sensor off the board and mount them and the lens remotely.

Just put them on some PCB at the same spacing and wire them back to the circuit board.

They fire at the spindle shaft and the display and circuit board find a home on the lathe headstock.

Short out the on off switch and your good to go.

A guy in the 10x22 yahoo groups has done it already - beat me to it.

You dump the battery and just use a 9v power pack.

Love dem mods

Cheers

Rob

I used to work at Jaycar Electronics. All staff were entitled to staff discount which was cost + 5%. I couldn't believe how cheap the stuff was! On one occasion I bought a $50 kit for about $12!

Simon

They arent the worse by a long shot.
I have one of their older IR thermometers, cost me around $50 for Jaycar a few years back. I saw the same thing in a link on this forum listed at $275(I think it was +gst)

Stuart

Jaycar are generally OK given they are a buy now store and 100% mark up is normal.

But this one blew me away.

Rob

Originally Posted by nearnexus

A guy in the 10x22 yahoo groups has done it already - beat me to it.

Do you have a link Rob? Or can you copy across a few photos? I'd like to try it. I currently use a Cateye bicycle computer as a lathe tacho. It works pretty well, but is inaccurate at low RPMs.
Chris

OK. I did down load the most relevant photos for my own reference - I'm a member.

Give me a few moments and I will put them on my web server and you can see how it all comes together .

Rob

OK guys and gals here it is - click on info below and see how you too can have a fancy LCD tachometer in your lathe headstock for only $12.

info

I can see a few people dusting off their soldering irons for this one.

Cheers

Rob

thanks Rob

G'Day Fellas,
I got screwed, I paid $18.00 for my laser tacho, in view of the price of these units I wonder if the internal components are up to continuous use in a spindle speed application ?.
I recently spotted a built up LED tacho module on Ebay for about $12.00, just need to add a photo sensor and power supply, I have one on order and should be here around the end of the month.
Rob,
I run a D.C. motor and KBMM controller on my lathe and it works a treat.
Regards,
Martin

What motor HP and voltage are you using Martin?

Also what 5 k ohm potentiometer are you using ? - small, big ? How much volt/amps does it have to carry ?

Rob

Hi Rob,
It's a 1.5 H.P. 180 volt D.C. motor, the pot is a standard 24mm dia .5 watt linear slope, it only carries control voltage, the SCRs on the board carry the actual current. FYI during final setup and testing a 2.5mm DOC @ .1mm/rev @ 500 RPM in 50mm mild steel pulled 3.2 Amps @140v . The KBMM is set to 170 volt maximum. The controller is mounted on an auxiliary heatsink which probably wasn't necessary. After 2 years of light use (2-4 hours a week) the brushes and commutator are as new. It was a lot of work at the time but worthwhile.
Regards,
Martin
P.S. it is essential that you install the correct horsepower resistor or the current compensation will go batshit.

Hi Martin,

Thanks for that.

CBC have the resistors as they are the Baldor Distributor in Oz - who handle KBE gear. About $10 each.

So no problem there.

I have a 2 HP 180 V DC motor out of a SportsArt 1210 and it's an awesome piece of gear. Replacement motor cost $400 - $600. This is a continuous duty motor.

These treadmills were $2500 new, and when they go kaput they cost an arm and a leg to repair, IF you can get the parts. So they get turfed. Thank you very much

Got the treadmill for nothing off of Gumtree - built like a tank and I've spent this afternoon cutting out the motor mount plate to cut up to make the lathe mount.

I'm using a KBIC - 240 controller and they recommend the auxillary heatsink be used for 2 HP applications (which is the maximum for this controller).

These are not cheap, so I'm just going to bolt the controller to the original power supply heatsink, which is just a massive piece of aluminium flat plate.

Should be more than adequate.

As you say, it's quite a bit of work to set it up correctly.

The original motor fan was pretty pathetic, and I intend to use a large PC power supply fan to blow air through the motor. Will run it off the tacho power supply if the volts agree, otherwise will just use another power pack.

Will take a while to get this all sorted, but looks promising.

These big treadmills also have a smaller 32 V DC motor for the incline function. These would make great motors for a miil powerfeed, or a small tool post grinder etc.

Cheers

Rob