Motor upgrade chinese lathe

[VicHobbyGuy]

One thing you may already be aware of and may have made modifications to ameliorate, is the lack of built-in rigidity in the Chinese 7x14's

If you don't alredy own a copy, you should get Ted Hansen's book "The Complete Mini Lathe Workshop".There are a lot of good ideas for 7x lathe improvements there. Ted has also reported (in the faceBook 7x group) on some experiments he did to measure the flex of the ways in the Sieg 7x lathe. His results indicated that flex in the ways was not a problem - especially compared to the many other sources of 'looseness' in the 7x - so that bolting down the lathe wasn't necessary. So bolting to heavy bases and filling the ways with concrete should probably go to the bottom of the list. Squealing and chatter while turning can have several causes- you're already addressing one of them (compound looseness).

 

[SouthernChap]

If you don't alredy own a copy, you should get Ted Hansen's book "The Complete Mini Lathe Workshop".There are a lot of good ideas for 7x lathe improvements there. Ted has also reported (in the faceBook 7x group) on some experiments he did to measure the flex of the ways in the Sieg 7x lathe. His results indicated that flex in the ways was not a problem - especially compared to the many other sources of 'looseness' in the 7x - so that bolting down the lathe wasn't necessary. So bolting to heavy bases and filling the ways with concrete should probably go to the bottom of the list. Squealing and chatter while turning can have several causes- you're already addressing one of them (compound looseness).

Oh I'm doing the granite offcut thing because the mild steel plate the lathe is on (and I suspect the two steel cabinets the plate is bolted to, as well) is acting like an amplifier; even the slightest resonance becomes a terrible racket! If the actual chatter was as bad as the sound it makes, the surface finish I produce would be dreadful and it's really not.

The epoxy granite thing? Eh, I'll do it because it's not going to hurt and it might add a little bit of extra vibration damping.

I'll check out the book though. Thank you for that.

 

[riversidedan]

I stuck a treadmill motor on my 9x20, the only down side is low torque at very slow speeds, but thats never been a problem.
Lack of rigidity in the cross slide/top slide setup is the main cause of parting woes. Solve that and parting will never be a problem again.

no problem with the rigidity the motor simply stalls out when parting...........so I wind up running a hack saw in the cutting groove on low speed

 

[verbotenwhisky]

been using a 7x14 chinese lathe that works fairly well but the motor is garbage!! esp when parting chokes and stalls out!

>>>>>>it needs a better motor so am looking for alternatives and ideas and am thinking the motor would have to be screwed down behind the HS with some belt drive device......WILL POST SOME PIX SOON....

3HP?

 

[riversidedan]

3HP?

thanx for that

 

[riversidedan]

Look for an adjustment labeled IR or I/R on the circuit board- that's the torque compensation pot
When it's adjusted correctly the motor should be able to take heavy cuts without slowing down

heres a pic of the board, on the upper right thiers 3 pots, which one do adjust??