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Can I reverse my 1 hp Nova 3000?

K

KEW

Joined
Jun 9, 2005
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Location
North Metro Atlanta
I bought a 1 hp manual belt Nova 3000 and am wondering if I can add a switch to run the motor in reverse. I won't actually have the lathe until Thursday, but I believe they were typically fitted with a Leeson Motor.
I haven't found any comments on reversing the motor on the Nova Users Group site, so kind of expect you cannot.
Thanks for your help.
 
Check the specification plate on the motor. Is it AC or DC? AC cannot be readilly switched. DC almost always can.
 
Depends on which motor. Mine's some Chaiwan 115V type rated 1HP @ 14.5 amps!

If you decide to do so, and reasons for doing so escape me, remember that tightening the motor hold T bar will be real important. Reverse will cause it to try and climb the belt. Since you'll have to have another switch anyway, make it a remote that you can move to the place you stand rather than leaning.

Great purchase. Good, useful lathe.
 
Richard,
Thanks, your article references a 3-phase motor (with inverter for speed control). Do you know if this is applicable to a standard 110V capacitor-start motor?

MM,
Thanks. The objective is to be able to alternate sanding in forward and reverse. I appreciate the thought and agree on the remote switches. I've been using foot switches from Rockler on my two other lathes and plan to do the same on the Nova (one advantage of single-phase motors is inexpensive switches); it is especially nice to be able to shut off the lathe while hollowing without having to pull the tool out to free a hand to hit the off switch.

Is there anything I should look for to determine if my motor is reversible?

Cheers,
Kurt
 
KEW, there is no way to reverse a 115v 1 phase ac motor.it takes a 3 phase to do so and about a 260$ controller to do so which will also give you speed control and braking. check out this link:
www.knelectric.com
 
I went down and checked the far east motor on my 3000, and there is no unused spade connector on the board, which is what you would see on a motor capable of being reversed. Essentially, you connect the capacitor to the opposite end of the starter windings. Motors with such capability normally have the directions printed on a tape inside the switch/overload box. Just follow the directions. Pretty much what Leeson says on their site. http://www.leeson.com/cgi-bin/nicefetchpdf.cgi/literature/manuals/pdf/manual_induction_motors.pdf
 
Well mine is a "made in Taiwan" motor so it isn't real simple.
I guess I'll cool my heels on this one while I build the stand and simply enjoy having a nicer lathe and turning some of the larger pieces of wood that have been taunting me.

Based on Laymar's diagram, it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to run duplicate wiring for the reversed circuit. I believe Grainger sells a switch for $30 to $40 which has the two sets of contacts like Laymar's diagram.
Any reason why this wouldn't work if I can tap into both side of the motor start winding?

Thanks!
 
chips29 said:
KEW, there is no way to reverse a 115v 1 phase ac motor.it takes a 3 phase to do so and about a 260$ controller to do so which will also give you speed control and braking. check out this link:
www.knelectric.com
Click to expand...
I always seem to find these things out too late after I have already done it 😀! I have modified several AC induction motors so that they can switched to run in either rotation -- one of these is the AC motor on my Delta 1440 lathe. Richard at Laymar Crafts has instructions on his website also about doing the same thing. Does this mean that we may need to rethink our stance on this now that we know it can't be done?

George, one semi useful feature of being able to reverse a lathe motor -- people think that I am pulling their legs when I mention using the reverse feature for hand chasing threads on the inside of a turned box and they'll invaribly tell me that it will make the threads run counterclockwise (anticlockwise for Richard). It actually requires a bit more than just running the motor in reverse and the rationale is that you can have the threads on the inside of the box go essentially full depth because you start from the bottom of the threads and go outward. As I mentioned, there are a couple more things that you need to do: the first is to work from the other side of the lathe bed and the second is to hone the bottom face of the chasing tool and then flip it over so that you are using the bottom as the top. If you can handle doing everything in mirror image fashion then you are good to go (if not try setting a mirror in front of yourself -- no, not really).

KEW, where the motor is made is irrelevant. The motor on my Delta lathe is also made in Taiwan.

Bill
 
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KEW said:
......... Any reason why this wouldn't work if I can tap into both side of the motor start winding? ...
Click to expand...
In many cases, it is very easy to tap into both sides of the start winding, especially if the configuration is like the one shown on Richard's web site where the centrifugal switch is located on one side of the winding and the capacitor is on the other side because the appropriate start winding leads are conveniently brought out from the coils to the switch and capacitor. In other cases, the centrifugal switch and start capacitor are in series on the same side of the start winding and in that case you will have to follow the appropriate power lead for the other side to where it spliats into the two windings and sort out which is which. This isn't too difficult if you have a portable multimeter which you really should have in any event that you start messing around with wiring.

For general information, some lathe motors such as the Jet mini do not have a centrifugal switch, but they do have a capacitor that is used for both start and run functions. I have not dug into mine ... YET, ... but it also can be rewired to be reversible -- how much difficulty to do the job -- I can't say until I actually do it.

No one has brought up another important factor yet, so I may as well -- you can't reverse a single-phase capacitor start AC induction motor on the fly and you really should not do it on a three-phase induction motor either -- this practice is known as "hot plugging" and is a good way to ruin a three-phase motor. The reason that "hot plugging" will not work on a single-phase capacitor start induction motor is that the direction of rotation is determined when the start winding is in the circuit and until the motor comes to a stop so that the centrifugal switch has closed its contacts, the start winding is not engaged.

Bill
 
Left-hand thread chasing. Why not? Seems an exotic requirement, though. The traditional answer about reversing is that it allows sanding in reverse, which is really irrlevant if you power sand, and of questionable value even if hand sanding, since the two places picked up will be pressed down and the two laid down picked up. Better practice is to raise everything with a damp cloth and sand across, then around again with sucessively finer grits.

Note what I said elsewhere, that if you reverse, you will want the L insert for Nova chucks versus the T. The L is longer and is bored and tapped for a locking grubscrew.
 
MichaelMouse said:
Left-hand thread chasing. Why not? Seems an exotic requirement, though. The traditional answer about reversing is that it allows sanding in reverse, which is really irrlevant if you power sand, and of questionable value even if hand sanding, since the two places picked up will be pressed down and the two laid down picked up. Better practice is to raise everything with a damp cloth and sand across, then around again with sucessively finer grits.

Note what I said elsewhere, that if you reverse, you will want the L insert for Nova chucks versus the T. The L is longer and is bored and tapped for a locking grubscrew.
Click to expand...
I figured that you might have considered that chasing threads from the other side of the lathe with the spindle running "backwards" to be exotic/eccentric/unusual or whatever, but it is about the only "useful" thing that I could think of as a result of reversing the direction of rotation. I agree about the sanding aspect and maybe a justification might be that someone finds collecting the sanding dust works easier for them by doing it that way.

My original intent for modifying the motor on my lathe had to do with sanding, but that got discarded before I even got started and the rationale then changed to something like Sir Edmund Hillary's explanation for climbing Mount Everest.

BTW, in case anyone reading this is confused about whether the threads will be RH or LH, it is the chasing tool and not the rotation direction of the lathe that determines whether the threads are RH or LH. Flipping the tool over and moving to the other side does not change the thread direction, but of course, when operating from the right side of the rest, you want the wood to be pressing the tool down against the rest rather than trying to lift it and that is the only reason that the direction of rotation is reversed.

A bit of trivia: It is interesting that we refer to a setscrew on a lathe chuck as a grub screw, which is the British term for setscrew. That possibly may be the only place where Americans use the British word for setscrew. I wonder what the explanation is for this exception -- perhaps that many of the chucks that we use come from the UK. I do not have a good place on my spindle for seating the set (grub) screw because the spindle on my lathe uses a circumferential register along with the typical radial register surface. A screw would "screw up" this surface.

Bill
 
Well, to be fair, any left-hand turning, not just thread chasing is going to be easier from the other side. It's just that I'm one of the righties, and unless I was looking to put visibility into my internal thread-chasing, I wouldn't reverse.
 
My leason motor on the Nova that has variable speed but belt driven has a reversing switch built in to it. but do be careful in reverse a chuck will become airborn
 
boehme said:
KEW, where the motor is made is irrelevant. The motor on my Delta lathe is also made in Taiwan.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean to have that implication. My understanding is that most of the Nova 3000's in the USA were either outfitted with a Leeson Motor (which I think has the lug for reverse) or a motor made in Taiwan. I should have worded it as: I have THE "made in Taiwan" motor.

Thanks for the info!
 
chips29 said:
KEW, there is no way to reverse a 115v 1 phase ac motor.it takes a 3 phase to do so and about a 260$ controller to do so which will also give you speed control and braking. check out this link:
www.knelectric.com
Click to expand...

Some 115v motors are reversible,
the 115v 1 phase induction motor on my shop built sander is reversible.
Had to select the correct connections to control direction.
 
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