New life for an old lathe

[Josh Bowman]

Well I just brought my South Bend 9 into the new age. It just got outfitted with a 3/4 hp 3 phase motor and TECO variable frequency drive unit. Thanks to a friend on the Woodturners forum, the setup went very fast. I actually was surprised how easy the transformation was. The first picture is the old 1/2 hp motor and drum switch system. The rest show the new VFD and motor. The unit will take the lathe from 30 rpm to full speed at a smooth gradual operation. It has reverse also.
The first picture is of the old motor and drum switch system. The rest are of the new VFD.

[Dennis Ford]

You are going to love this setup, it will have so much better control of the speed and allow very slow speeds when needed.

[Ron Brese]

The combination of a 3 phase motor and VFD is a wonderful thing. Even though I do a lot of work with hand tools in this case I have to give a big thumbs up to technology. I have 3 versions of this running in my shop. I purposely purchased a step head knee mill in order to apply this same configuration. The only time I've changed belts was to decide which position gave me the best overall range, since then it's been a twist of the dial to change speeds. I then used a VFD to provide a conversion for my surface grinder.

I also used another system of this type to install auto table traverse on my surface grinder. In this case I delved deeper into the motor control capability of a VFD than has ever been necessary for me. Many people are going to a logic board to perform many of the task that can be handle with the functions of a capable VFD, and they've already paid for this capability in the purchase of the VFD. With this system I'm controlling the automatic reversing of the motor, a jog feature setting the spark off point, and ultimate over travel limit protection thru two limit switches as a back up in case of the malfunction of the reversing switch. That's a lot of bang for the buck in a VFD.

Many people overlook the multifunction ports that are available on many VFDs. They can be configured to do control all sorts of features within the same system.

Ron