Hello fellow hobby machinists. my name is Len, long time lurker and new poster.
Earlier this year I acquired a 1955 10EE from a friend in southern CA. My friend owns a small job shop and had owned the lathe for about 10 years. It had a history of running sporadically and as such was used less and less over time. Eventually he needed the space for revenue producing activities and offered it to me.
The machine was originally sold to Hughes Aircraft in Culver City. It came to me with 3 and 4 jaw chucks, 5c collet closer, steady rest, taper attachment, and an Aloris tool post. Overall it looks to be in good shape mechanically at least.
The machine's spindle drive system is a DC motor and the WIAD (works in a drawer) that as mentioned above has a history of inconsistent performance, starting up normally only about 50% of the time and once running shutting off unexpectedly. My initial thoughts were to try to repair the WIAD to keep the amazing DC performance the machine came with originally but after a closer look I have concluded that the machine would need a complete rewire as the old insulation was dried out and is falling off the conductors. In addition the wire coloring has faded, wire markers, and terminal markers are gone or faded to the point they are not usable which would make a rewire challenging, not to mention no guarantee that the drive would run any better after all the effort.
And so begins my journey to convert the drive system to an A/C motor with a VFD control keeping the gear reduction function. I have read all of the more recent VFD conversion threads here and on Practical Machinist and feel pretty comfortable with the mechanical side of the conversion and less comfortable with the electronics side of things. I have lots of questions, many of them no doubt dumb, but this forum and its members have a wealth of knowledge and are willing to share. My hope is that generosity will get me through my project and that this thread will help someone else in the future.
In my next post I will detail what I think the right game plan is and start asking some of the pesky questions.
Earlier this year I acquired a 1955 10EE from a friend in southern CA. My friend owns a small job shop and had owned the lathe for about 10 years. It had a history of running sporadically and as such was used less and less over time. Eventually he needed the space for revenue producing activities and offered it to me.
The machine was originally sold to Hughes Aircraft in Culver City. It came to me with 3 and 4 jaw chucks, 5c collet closer, steady rest, taper attachment, and an Aloris tool post. Overall it looks to be in good shape mechanically at least.
The machine's spindle drive system is a DC motor and the WIAD (works in a drawer) that as mentioned above has a history of inconsistent performance, starting up normally only about 50% of the time and once running shutting off unexpectedly. My initial thoughts were to try to repair the WIAD to keep the amazing DC performance the machine came with originally but after a closer look I have concluded that the machine would need a complete rewire as the old insulation was dried out and is falling off the conductors. In addition the wire coloring has faded, wire markers, and terminal markers are gone or faded to the point they are not usable which would make a rewire challenging, not to mention no guarantee that the drive would run any better after all the effort.
And so begins my journey to convert the drive system to an A/C motor with a VFD control keeping the gear reduction function. I have read all of the more recent VFD conversion threads here and on Practical Machinist and feel pretty comfortable with the mechanical side of the conversion and less comfortable with the electronics side of things. I have lots of questions, many of them no doubt dumb, but this forum and its members have a wealth of knowledge and are willing to share. My hope is that generosity will get me through my project and that this thread will help someone else in the future.
In my next post I will detail what I think the right game plan is and start asking some of the pesky questions.
