Look what followed me home.

[DavieJ75]

I picked this up yesterday. Its 3 phase so I will have to get a motor or a single to three phase vfd. I'm super happy to have it. I have sieg clone 9x20 and this standard modern is amazing when it come to quality difference. Ultilathe under standard modern here in Canada. Not sure of the year. says 9inch and in the online lit I can find 22-1/2 inches between centers. It looks to be from the 60's. I could be wrong. Was in a tech shop for more then 10 years maybe used a couple times other then that its in great shape. If anyone can share any info they might have on this lathe. I do have the 20 page manual from the standard modern website. But I have not found much else.

 

[MikeInOr]

I have never heard if such a beast. A 9in 3 phase lathe. It looks like it might have a reeves type variable drive built in? It looks like a major step up from modern bench top 9" lathes!

Nope I see a badge that says "stop motor when shifting gears". So not a reeves drive... Not a bad thing though.

 

[DavieJ75]

It was connected to 208 3 phase. One of the reason I got it was because of this. As no one else wanted to deal with it. It is a bit of head scratcher as there is no real reason for this size of lathe to need 3 phase wiring. I will look at the wiring tomorrow. I had to take it a very short time as in less then a week. So I was not very picky on details. It's a very solid lathe for the size.

 

[woodchucker]

it's simple, if thats what the place was wired for, they got 3 phase. 3 phase motors were commercial grade.
Also I would not change the motor. Either a vfd, or a phase converter. Variable speed with a vfd is nice, so is the slow ramp up, and ramp down and braking. you just have to know how you want to set it up. what kind of spindle chuck mount?

 

[Provincial]

With three phase power, it will definitely work with 220 volts. It should also work on 240 volts, just drawing fewer amps to produce the same power.

208 volts is used where three phase power is required, but there is also a need for single phase 120 volts for lighting and regular outlets. Going from any of the legs to neutral/ground yields the 120 volts. If you go from a 3 phase 240 volt leg to neutral/ground, you get about 138 volts.

 

[Larry$]

Check what 3 phase voltage it was wired for. Some Canadian stuff is 575 V.

 

[MikeInOr]

A 220v VFD should work well with that lathe. You will need to bypass the factory power switch and wire the VFD directly to the motor... at least this is how a VFD should be wired.

 

[jwmay]

Awesome! I’m no expert, but I think you found something unique!
There are hundreds of threads here about powering such a machine. A couple of hours of study should have you sorted.
Enjoy your new toy!

 

[Martin W]

Thats a beauty lathe. I like the chip tray inside the chip tray. That is a good idea.
Martin

 

[DavieJ75]

I will get a better look at it today. It was at my work and we had a safety audit on the machine shops. This time they audited all of the lathes not just the ones in the classroom labs for the students, so there was 4 being used by the tool room lab techs. Any lathe that does not have a shield with a shut down for the chuck had to be either converted or scrapped. This one was listed for disposal as the engineering estimate on the shield and shut down was over 3k. There was another one as well but it was much larger, I did not get to see the larger one. Newer ones that have a manufactures kit available are being converted to meet the safety requirements. It is not just a matter of making a shield and a switch work either they have to have safety certification and that's where most of the cost would have come in. It was a a take it now kind of deal, so I jumped on it. I do have experience with vfd's. So I will for sure be going that route in the coming months.

I had to change careers here last year and move to Calgary. I was very hesitant to do it, loss of wage, extra costs, and moving. But it has likely been one of the best things I have ever committed to, saying I do is on top of course. We still have our other house and my daughter is living in it. So I have my things spread between the two. Separated by about a 3hr drive. I will get some more pics up this morning as I get a chance to look in to the lathe more, it also came with some other tooling so I will look at that.