How much room needed behind 1236T?

[verbotenwhisky]

I have my PM-1340GT against the wall. I used compressed air to blow out any swarf that gets behind the lathe, and in 6 years have not had to access the electronics. If I did need to pull it out, I built my own stand for the lathe specifically for drawer storage and the ability to get under it with my pallet jack. I assume you intend to install and employ the rear chip shield - if not, you would want accessibility behind to clean up with vacuum or broom.

View attachment 427122

That looks nice and functional.....

 

[verbotenwhisky]

My 12x36 is 24'' from the wall. Just enough for any work I had to do on the lathe from the back.
That space is used to park stuff on wheels or portable stuff so that it can easily be moved out of the way to access the back of the lathe. Much easier than moving the lathe.

I am preparing to setup my PM1236M and I was thinking 18" however, I could be talked into 24". Is 24" a number you found somewhere or a number that simply made since?

 

[B2]

Shoulder width is nice.... if you have sufficient room and it sounds like you do. However, the electronics locations on the 1236T and my 1440GT are a little different. Mine are in the back of the stand as you can see in my post quoted below. This means I am on the floor when working on the electronics. I think yours are part of the lathe itself so a little more comfortable height!

Since I completed my VFD conversion and installed in the back of my PM1440GT, I never had to work on it again. However, I did make an addition and so needed to take the transparent electronics cover off for this. I did this with the lathe in place. So my general feeling is that should you want to spend time back there it would be nice to have enough room for your shoulder width so that you can crawl in if needed. However, I have casters on my machine, so just in case I can raise the feet (screws) lowering the lathe onto the casters...... then just pull it out .... if anything very serious went wrong.

VFD conversion using solid state electronic components.

Dave L.

 

[pontiac428]

I don't have a PM or a 1236 anything, but I do have a lathe and it is big. The instruction manual says to put it 24" from the wall. I went 18". I can step behind it to do everything I might need to do, until the chip guard goes on. Then I can't work on the lathe, but I can remove it if I need to. I am able to get everything behind from underneath and still find small dropped parts. So 18" works, but it's tight with a chip guard. I would just love to put it 6" from the wall, but it just isn't made to run that way. If you can access the motor, electric panel, and remove the cross slide assembly from the front, you can probably get away with 6".

 

[Just for fun]

I have 10" from the back of the backslash to the wall. It's tight but workable.

 

[Tozguy]

I am preparing to setup my PM1236M and I was thinking 18" however, I could be talked into 24". Is 24" a number you found somewhere or a number that simply made since?

It just made sense in my case given the room I had and the prospect of having to remove the bulky chip guard on occasion.

 

[Winegrower]

Consider this: most of us have shops that seem small and crowded. If, not, please skip to the next post.
Space between equipment and walls for access is wasted space. Avoiding that, I set the lathe and mill backing up to the room centerline, and behind them put machines accessible from the other side of the room. In my case, the lathe and my big 9x16” horizontal bandsaw are back to back, with the bandsaw on steel wheels. It’s easily movable for long material or other unusual cuts. The mill is to the left of the lathe, whose spindle axis passes over the mill table region, so very long stock can be used. And if needed, the mill table can support the long stock, using V blocks, bearings, etc. Behind the mill is the big vertical Jet VBS-900 vertical bandsaw…not easily movable, but there is not really any access required behind a Bridgeport.

So my point is, consider putting the equipment in the center of the room, and keeping all the equipment to wall space as useful area.

 

[Ischgl99]

Mine’s right up against the wall, but I removed the control panel on the back and rewired for a VFD in a separate panel. I ran all the wiring on the lathe into a small junction box mounted to the side of my homemade stand, and that then goes to the VFD panel. This way I can work on it at any time and not worry about access issues. I plan on using the bolt holes on the back of the headstock where the panel was for a bracket for my DRO when I get around to installing one.

 

[parshal]

How are you guys accessing the leveling feet that close to the wall? On my 1340 with the factory stands, you need some room to get a wrench in there to adjust.

 

[Ischgl99]

Mine’s a home made stand, I designed it so there is no access issues for the leveling feet.