New Member From Langley Bc Ready To Start Lathe & Mill Shopping

[tmarks11]

I gave it some thought for a few days and have changed my order to 3 phase for both machines. I ordered the Hitachi VFD's from QMT

Good choice, that is what I did for my PM935TV. My reasoning is that it is about the same price (as substituting in a 1 phase motor), and you can make the spindle electronically brake, which is really nice to have.

 

[Hawkeye]

I have a mill/drill and my big lathe running off one VFD. You're going to love the control. I have a couple of optical tachs, but the main ones have built-in tachs. If you want to have a bit of fun, check out Mach-Tach. It's a kit that you solder together and install. It can display in RPM or IPS at the push of a button. This is the original VFD control panel. It got rebuilt after the fire. When you switch between Mill and Lathe, the tach input switches too.

 

[ch2co]

I really like my little Mach-Tach since I added an update kit to it so it works along with my VFD. I only have a little 10-22, but the VFD is worth its
weight in gold.
Hawkeye, Your VFD to MILL/LATHE switch box is the cats meow. I'll probably will just get another VFD if and when I get a bigger mill that has an
actual AC motor on it.
Kiwi Canuck: An Ausi Canadian ? or just a southerner. Man you could jut about sneeze and end up in Washington state.
I love BC. Some of my best vacations were in various parts of BC. The best of Colorado without the **** people. Maybe even better?

Chuck the grumpy old guy

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

I have a mill/drill and my big lathe running off one VFD. You're going to love the control. I have a couple of optical tachs, but the main ones have built-in tachs. If you want to have a bit of fun, check out Mach-Tach. It's a kit that you solder together and install. It can display in RPM or IPS at the push of a button. This is the original VFD control panel. It got rebuilt after the fire. When you switch between Mill and Lathe, the tach input switches too.
View attachment 141191

Nice job on the control box, (Very Canadian with those Robertson Screws) I will probably order a couple of the basic tachs from ebay to start unless I can get my head around the Mach-Tach and what's involved before the machines show up.
I figure I will have a pretty steep learning curve on other stuff to get up to speed with, so I'll just putt along till I'm comfortable with my decisions.

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

I really like my little Mach-Tach since I added an update kit to it so it works along with my VFD. I only have a little 10-22, but the VFD is worth its
weight in gold.
Hawkeye, Your VFD to MILL/LATHE switch box is the cats meow. I'll probably will just get another VFD if and when I get a bigger mill that has an
actual AC motor on it.
Kiwi Canuck: An Ausi Canadian ? or just a southerner. Man you could jut about sneeze and end up in Washington state.
I love BC. Some of my best vacations were in various parts of BC. The best of Colorado without the **** people. Maybe even better?

Chuck the grumpy old guy

Chuck, thanks for chiming in, the user name "Kiwi Canuck", comes from a Kiwi (New Zealander) living in Canada, (no not an Aussie, just neighbours, only 1,200 miles of ocean between us)

I actually live closer to the border with Washington State than the City of Vancouver, so I can get to my mailbox in Lynden WA in the same time it takes to get to Vancouver, and yes I agree it's a great place.

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

I heard the Easson DRO was delivered to my shop today so I'll see what I got on Monday as I'm working from home today.

Also ordered (2) 500 Watt braking resistors from Hong Kong, one 33 Ohm for the Mill and one 47 ohm unit for the Lathe, they should be here next week as well.

 

[Hawkeye]

Since the VFD runs two machines, the control box is on a telescoping arm than pivots toward the machine in use. Turn a selector switch on the VFD housing and control and tach source are switched to the appropriate unit. And just so there are no accidents, the switch won't operate until there is no output from the VFD.

 

[zmotorsports]

Sorry, I'm a little late to the party but good choice on machines.

Funny you mentioned about not substituting quality in anything you have purchased. My son used my exact words against me when I was waffling over my machine choices as well.

You know which machines I ended up with and haven't looked back since.

Looking forward to seeing them set up in your shop.

Mike.

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

Sorry, I'm a little late to the party but good choice on machines.

Funny you mentioned about not substituting quality in anything you have purchased. My son used my exact words against me when I was waffling over my machine choices as well.

You know which machines I ended up with and haven't looked back since.

Looking forward to seeing them set up in your shop.

Mike.

Hey Mike, thanks for dropping in and commenting, haven't seen you posting online for a while.

So thank you for your time to detail your experience with the 2 machines you purchased from QMT, I really enjoyed reading your posts about the setup and the videos you have posted are fantastic.

I found out about this forum from following you on Garage Journal, which is another great forum that has helped me upgrade my tool collection and finding/buying new tools I didn't even know I needed.

Look forward to seeing your new shop, are you having it built or is it an existing building? Can't remember if you mentioned that.

Cheers and Merry Christmas to you and family,

David.

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

Mike, I see you have the Easson ES8A 3 Axis DRO installed on your PM-935, did you document the install?

Would be nice to see how you did that as I will be doing the same once my machines arrive, mostly need guidance with the 'Z' Knee Axis install, the others look pretty straight forward.

David