Monster Lathe Update (or Rube Goldberg is alive and well and living in Davis, Ca.)

[David DeCristoforo]

OK... I admit it. This is pretty funky. I got the new motor this week and I ran it "as is". It behaved exactly like to first one. So I had to lay aside any thought of the motor having been damaged in shipment which left me with the low starting torque 2 pole motor theory. After much head scratching and playing around with ideas, this magnificent rig is what I ended up with. Ridiculous? Cumbersome? Well I guess so. The only thing it has going for it is that it works. There is enough slack in the belt for the motor to come up to speed. Then the "thingie" is used to take the slack out of the belt.

I should note that this is going to be as temporary a "solution" as I can make it. As soon as I have the dough, I will switch this over to a 2 or 3hp 3ph motor with a VFD. In the meantime, I can make some bowls....

slack.jpg tight.jpg

[charlie knighton]

looking forward to some big bowls, DD, enjoy

[Harry Robinette]

Rube would be proud of ya,young man. Now let's see what you can do with it. Good luck DD.

[Nate Davey]

Thanks for the update, David. Do you think the motor would work for a "normal people" lathe or is it just not up to the task?

[David DeCristoforo]

"Do you think the motor would work for a "normal people" lathe..."

I'm thinking that on a lathe used for spindle turning, it might be OK. With this lathe (as is the case with many if not most), the motor has to spin up the weight of a large blank. Since the 2 pole motor has a low starting torque, it struggles to get going under the load. Once it gets up to speed, it seems OK. On any machine where there was little or no starting load, it would probably be fine. But for the price, I can't see how this motor would have any advantage to offer over the more typical 3ph motor/VFD arrangement other than the fact that you can just plug it in and go with no additional wiring needed.

[Tim Leiter]

David, is that red/maroon paint the "hammer look" kind too? If it is what color is it. It would look good on some of my stuff and I would like to get some if it is the hammer look kind.

[Rick Markham]

Glad to see it's workable! Hopefully you can get the VFD and 3 phase soon... looking forward to seeing some monster bowls off the Rube Goldberg machine!

[David DeCristoforo]

"...is that red/maroon paint the "hammer look" kind too? If it is what color..."

Rust-Oleum "Hammer Finish" Bright Red.

[Sid Matheny]

I know it is not the outcome you wanted but at least you can make some bowls now and hopefully improvements are still to come later.

Sid

[Baxter Smith]

Rube would be proud!

[David DeCristoforo]

Rube would be proud!

More likely rolling over in his grave, muttering something about "those Italians"...