***Resolved*** NEW PM-1440HVT-2 Lathe (PM fixed it)

[paynerd]

I was going to suggest, at a point in the thread, a piece of clear plexiglass to replace the top cover to allow a visual while the lathe was running.

This thread has been of great interest to me as I have some noise issues since replacing the motor with a VFD driven one on my Grizzly G0602 lathe. I've suspected the VFD from the git go but still haven't figured out if its that or the spindle bearings. May have to take another look at parameter settings.

Sure glad you got your new lathe up and running! Enjoy!

I thought about doing this, I had a couple of hang ups though. 1. The gear sits above the case so I'd have to somehow raise the plexiglass about an inch. 2. By the time I figured out how to raise the plexiglass and get it bolted in I was afraid with all the oil going everywhere it would block any view to help me see if there was a loose gear.

 

[paynerd]

I'm skeptical that the lathe was sufficiently tested prior to shipment. All you did was put it in high gear and run it up to 700 RPM to get that horrific noise. Unless VFDs can change their settings during shipment, they couldn't have tested it.
I'm very happy that you solved it.
IMO product support is not what it should be. I bought a new ACER Bridgeport clone some years ago ($12K) and heard motor bearing noise. I was able to convince the tech I spoke with by holding the phone up to the top of the motor.
They sent me a whole new motor and I had to do the change myself and return the old one. Never did anything like that before. Other than that it's a nice machine.
The only option we have when we don't get good support is to complain very loudly on the internet and try to shame the manufacturer into resolving the problem. Fortunately it didn't get that far in your case.

I don't know anything about electricity but one of the steps said if my voltage was strong I could bump it up from 220 to 240. Makes me wonder if their voltage could be slightly different from mine (range from 110-120) if that could make a difference from testing there vs my house. Like I said, I know nothing about it though. Its crazy reading some of these posts about how much a VFD can be tweaked and pros/cons of them.

I turned a large dom 3.5"x.75" last night. Did some aggressive cuts to see how it would do. Seemed to work good. It will be interesting once I get my tachometer replaced to see what my RPM's are. Low gear was 0-300 and high gear is 300-2000. Seems like low gear right now is flying. Feels like its closer to 400 or 500 rpm's. I could be wrong. We will see.

It will be interesting to see if they have me do any other changes to the VFD because I believe they is more a of basic setting (like a reset). Possibly down the road they might get better settings, like your constant software updates.

 

[npalen]

Give me a call if it gives you any more trouble and I will come take it away for you!

 

[mksj]

It may have been that the VFD was setup/tested for a different voltage/Hz then the US, but there still was some resonant issues that were sorted out with the auto-tune and maybe the motor specifications. VFD's should be tested and the parameter's worked out for a factory VFD machine for a specific geographic region. Supply issues have caused some lathe manufactures to use different VFD's or it may be a vendor specification change, as such all of the bugs may not have been worked out, as this is a different VFD then I have seen from similar models by the same lathe manufacturer. In general, I do not recommend people changing the factory VFD settings if they do not know what they are doing, nor is it typical to have updates/future parameters.

 

[braddr]

I was going to suggest, at a point in the thread, a piece of clear plexiglass to replace the top cover to allow a visual while the lathe was running.

Oh.. that sounds like a really interesting idea. I'm now very tempted to do that to the skin of my 1030.

 

[9t8z28]

Glad you got it figured out. If you haven’t already I would set these specific video’s TO private so that people don’t get the wrong impression about PM machines

 

[davidpbest]

If you haven’t already I would set these specific video’s TO private so that people don’t get the wrong impression about PM machines

Disagree.

 

[tim81]

I will help others and actually help them out on sales as it has a larger community behind it. Good advice is to put the PM solution to the video description so whoever sees it know they back their product and there is a solution.

 

[paynerd]

It

Glad you got it figured out. If you haven’t already I would set these specific video’s TO private so that people don’t get the wrong impression about PM machines

It would be nice if I could edit my first post to add an **UPDATE** below my comments for those that don't want to skip to the end of the book to see how it ended. Hopefully they read a little further to see that PM does give good customer service. I also think its important to know and understand that your new machine can come broken but they will hold your hand through the process. I also think its import to know that they aren't going to send a service tech out regardless of what needs repaired. NOT to say they won't but in my situation they were going to have me do some pretty difficult things. I didn't ever press them for a service person so I can't say 100% they won't but I wouldn't count on it. In my situation I told the PM person he is going to have to walk me through this like I was an 8 year old and he pretty much did that. Would I buy this machine again knowing what I know now... 100% I would. Buying this product I have to accept the fact that its a newer product for them and I have to know there will be some bumps in the road with it. I see all the competitors are coming out with this similar product (VFD) now and I'm sure they will have similar issues at first. Hopefully if folks read this thread and are serious about purchasing a lathe they will put for the effort to see how it all worked out vs just reading the first post.

 

[wrmiller]

I don't know of any machinery vendor who caters to the hobbyist crowd offering on-site repairs. Nor would I expect them to, as most hobbyists wouldn't pay for that anyway (and trust me, we'd pay for the service one way or another, regardless of someone taking advantage of said service).