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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Gunsmithing
Which new lathe?
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<blockquote data-quote="wwbrown" data-source="post: 1637664" data-attributes="member: 31392"><p>A friend and I put together a shop to do gunsmithing, a lathe, mill, and large compressor. Instead of putting a VFD on each machine I installed a rotary convertor that was assembled by buying a control box and supplying a 3 phase motor. Three phase motors can be had almost for scrap prices, the 3 phase on the convertor is a 10 hp and I got it for $50 after a fresh rewind and bearing job. Frame type does not matter for the phase convertor so just watch craigslist for a while to get the hp motor you need. The control box was about $350, so generating 3 phase cost us less than $500 to get going.</p><p></p><p>After running the shop on a part time basis for about 5 years we have blown out two capacitors in the control box at about $12 a piece and that is the only problem we have had. To test the robustness of the system we have run the mill, lathe, and compressor (about 14 hp total rating) at the same time and had no problem. Keep in mind most of barreling work is very low loading on the machine light cuts for short tenons, reaming has intermittent loading unless running an oil flush system. One other drawback is a greater initial up front cost in wiring the shop as you have to run an additional line to each machine when going with the rotary convertor, we strung all the conduit and wiring so that was not a bog deal. </p><p></p><p>Three of us wired the shop got the 3 phase convertor installed in about 4 hours and things worked like they should when we plugged them in the first. All of the "magic smoke" stayed inside all of the components. Prior to wiring the shop I knew nothing about 3 phase I just studied a fair amount on google and was careful.</p><p></p><p>Noise and extra electric costs are the drawbacks on the rotary system we have other than that all has been good. I built a 2 hp 2 x 72 belt grinder that runs in my garage a VFD. The grinder-VFD combination is great as I get continuous variable speed find the sweet spot read of the frequency on the VFD and you can come right back to it. I bought a VFD off of ebay for about $60 and that has worked great, I got the 2 hp three phase off of craigslist for $50 so I have more power than I need at the exact speed I need for $110 a very hard price to beat.</p><p></p><p>There are pluses and minuses to each way if I only had one or two machines I would probably go with a VFD at each machine and feed 2 phase 220 to the machines.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wwbrown, post: 1637664, member: 31392"] A friend and I put together a shop to do gunsmithing, a lathe, mill, and large compressor. Instead of putting a VFD on each machine I installed a rotary convertor that was assembled by buying a control box and supplying a 3 phase motor. Three phase motors can be had almost for scrap prices, the 3 phase on the convertor is a 10 hp and I got it for $50 after a fresh rewind and bearing job. Frame type does not matter for the phase convertor so just watch craigslist for a while to get the hp motor you need. The control box was about $350, so generating 3 phase cost us less than $500 to get going. After running the shop on a part time basis for about 5 years we have blown out two capacitors in the control box at about $12 a piece and that is the only problem we have had. To test the robustness of the system we have run the mill, lathe, and compressor (about 14 hp total rating) at the same time and had no problem. Keep in mind most of barreling work is very low loading on the machine light cuts for short tenons, reaming has intermittent loading unless running an oil flush system. One other drawback is a greater initial up front cost in wiring the shop as you have to run an additional line to each machine when going with the rotary convertor, we strung all the conduit and wiring so that was not a bog deal. Three of us wired the shop got the 3 phase convertor installed in about 4 hours and things worked like they should when we plugged them in the first. All of the "magic smoke" stayed inside all of the components. Prior to wiring the shop I knew nothing about 3 phase I just studied a fair amount on google and was careful. Noise and extra electric costs are the drawbacks on the rotary system we have other than that all has been good. I built a 2 hp 2 x 72 belt grinder that runs in my garage a VFD. The grinder-VFD combination is great as I get continuous variable speed find the sweet spot read of the frequency on the VFD and you can come right back to it. I bought a VFD off of ebay for about $60 and that has worked great, I got the 2 hp three phase off of craigslist for $50 so I have more power than I need at the exact speed I need for $110 a very hard price to beat. There are pluses and minuses to each way if I only had one or two machines I would probably go with a VFD at each machine and feed 2 phase 220 to the machines. [/QUOTE]
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Which new lathe?
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