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Nova 1624 - adding variable speed

Steve...

Despite my comment in the other forum that I don't need new ideas for spending money🙂, I think this mod is in the short term future for me. I'll be interested in hearing how things work out over the next weeks or so.

...Bob
 
Well, so far very good. A lot of what I currently like to do are heavy blanks in the 40# range. So the lowest belt setting gets me thru the heavy rough out and then jumping up just one belt setting gets me plenty of range for all my fine roughing and finish cuts. With a big blank I usually top out in the 600 rpm range, especially if the blank has some internal mass that is out of balance.

I've had the lathe turning at 40rpm (lowest belt) for a long sanding session and motor stayed cool.

This motor is rated 2:1 (900 rpm motor shaft) for constant torque - I take that to mean heavy roughing, gouge always in the wood taking lots of material really fast.

This motor is rated 5:1 (360 rpm) for variable torque - which I take to mean a lot of what we do with a lathe, taking finish cuts, sanding, etc. Most of the time I'm not putting a lot of load on that motor. It's not having to lift a heavy load up a conveyor belt, etc.

So time will tell, but so far I'm one happy camper after spending some time jealous of my friends with VFD. And I'm absolutely sure this is what has been holding me back from doing some world class turning - yeah sure.
 
Steve...

I was looking at your pictures and began to wonder if the new motor and mounting gets in the way of the headstock hand wheel. It might be a perspective thing in the photo, but it looked like it might be a close fit. Thanks.

...Bob
 
The distance between handwheel and motor mount is less than previously with OEM motor. The handwheel is still useable. And if I had mounted the motor with the mount feet at the back the spacing would have been the same as before. Very honestly, I didn't think of the handwheel until getting thru the project.

I find myself reaching for the handwheel a lot less now, I was used to using handwheel to slow down turning after hitting the off button. Now the VFD brings the lathe to a controlled stop in less than a second.

You can still easily get the bar into the handwheel to free a chuck, and using the handwheel as a vacuum adapter will still work fine.

The headstock lock pin located under motor has as much clearance as before.

But rotating motor 90 deg CCW looking from it into lathe would have put the elect junction box on the bottom where it might have interfered with headstock pin.

So, yeah, sort of a ying/yang between using feet for mount and having normal room around handwheel.

All in all, I should have gotten my fen shui consultant in on this project.
 
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