Buying my first new lathe. Chinese or Chinese?

Wow you all have some really great points. I have to say this has been a bit of a head scratchier for me as I am far from a professional on a lathe, not at all rich, want to become good at running a lathe, and only want to purchase this one time.
I purchased a new Langmuir CNC MR1 a year ago and I feel I got it stuck to me and scammed so I was a little gun shy on this purchase. There has been a couple guys on this website that has been FULL of great input and it has been very much appreciated.
So PM has now come out with a PM-1440-2V-w/2axDRO which now replaces the 1440BV but it costs a bit more money, not a ton but more, plus this looks like it will be available end Nov. I have decided to go with this lathe as it does give some really great options with the machine like coolant, foot brake, VFD, 2 8" chucks, and much more is offered with this machine where the Taiwanese lathes will cost many times more for the same options and I just can not justify that cost for what I want to do. I am still just right at $10k with this which is much more than I originally planned but again this is a 1 time deal and I can not beat the stuff that comes with it. I have also looked at Eisen but again everything is an option that you pay heavily for and no one beats PM's warranty.
I really struggled with getting the Grizzly at first but some of you on here said that was not a great idea and a few bad YouTube videos so I have definitely decided not to go that route. I have yet to see anyone say something bad about PM even if it is Chinese which in my little brain speaks volumes.

So I have 2 questions which I am a little unclear about and the sales team has yet to get back to me on. 1) It does not appear that PM has a tapper attachment for these machines (still investigating) so does anyone know of another place to get this attachment that would work on a PM 1440 lathe or even better does anyone have some kind of plans to make one? 2) Do the DRO's that come with the PM machines read out accurately or is it advised to possibly see about upgrading to a different DRO? This is probably a loaded question but I do not think I want to skimp on the DRO and I don't think these come with great DRO's? Anyone that has purchased a new PM lately?
 
Welcome back!

I can't say much on the DRO, other than they are getting better all the time. I brazenly don't use one on the lathe, so that disqualifies my opinion.

As to the taper attachment... For what it's worth, all lathes have built-in taper capability. The tailstock can be offset to a high degree of precision for turning long tapers, like (ahem!) barrels. The compound works a treat for short tapers (maybe 4" or so, varies by machine), also very precise. Either way, the setup time is similar to a taper attachment or quicker, depending on the machines being compared. I imagine there is good reason so many machines ship without them. If they were necessary, they'd be a built-in feature, too.
 
Hi John, great point. I suppose a fairly decent angle finding tool would be much more cost saving and probably faster than an attachment. The attachments I have looked at are upwards of 7or8 hundred bucks so they are not cheap. The first project I have planned is something like a barrel only makes for a huge bang and has wheels (wink wink HEHEHEHE) hence the reason for the attachment to start with. I always thought resetting the tailstock to get it dead center would be a much more time consuming effort but I could be wrong on that.
 
PM sells a tapper attachment accessory for my PM1440GT. I purchased one but have yet to need it.

I think getting the Taiwan versions are worth the extra cost.... higher QC and fewer issues.

I had the first magnetic DRO installed and am happy with it. It is accurate. PM installed it. There has been lots written about the various DROs on HM. So just search it. Disadvantage of DROs is that the xfeed dro covers the carrage lock, so you fave to create a fix.

I think a useful DRO feature would be a programmable position stop signal. I haven't seen any of them that offer this, but it would seem to be a trivial feature for manufacturers to offer.

I build my own VFD conversion and included a stop feature. If the DRO provided a signal I could have used it instead of the carriage stop I built. With the ebrake built into my VFD conversion I never seem to need the foot brake, however the 1440GT mechanical brake works really well!
 
I also have a newbie question that I don't understand. What is a "fixed center tail stock and head stock" and as apposed to??
Also what is a "Reducing Sleeve"?
 
I totally get it but it is a cost thing. You are easily 5k more just to get started and from what I understand A) PM will stand by the quality if there are any issues and B) I will in no way ever be good enough to see the differences between the 2.
I asked PM about those GT attachments but they said they would not work. I do find it odd they would not carry something for the other models.
I do wish I had a bit more wiring confidence as setting up a VFD with a DRO would be an unbelievable setup.
 
PS. I did several tests to check out the accuracy of my PM magnetic DRO. It was accurate. I mentioned my VFD conversion. Well I built a high resolution rpm and revolution counter into the controller. They actually measure to 1/10 revolution resolution. I used it to count the number of spindle revolutions per distanced moved for a known gear arrangement. I did this over short and long distances (20 inches) and the bed length dro was dead on. I also used my 1" digital plunge micrometer on both directions, and got agreement. By the way I spent a long time calibrating the digital micrometers. There are some micrometers out there that are not that great. Mine met spec and are linear and accurate to witn in 5 micrometers over the 1 inch.
 
Rufustoad said:
I also have a newbie question that I don't understand. What is a "fixed center tail stock and head stock" and as apposed to??
Also what is a "Reducing Sleeve"?
Click to expand...
“Fixed” or “Dead” (the 60-degree pointed center does not rotate) versus “Live” (it rotates with the material). Watch this video:

 
If you cannot afford the 1440 from Taiwan look at the Taiwan made PM1340GT. Lots of HM seem to be happy with that machine.
 
Rufustoad said:
I also have a newbie question that I don't understand. What is a "fixed center tail stock and head stock" and as apposed to??
Also what is a "Reducing Sleeve"?
Click to expand...
Typically the lathe spindle and the tailstock have an internal geometry that is a Morse taper ( or MT). My PM-1340GT has an MT5 taper in the spindle, and MT3 (which is smaller) in the tailstock. A reducing sleeve is used to make a large MT reduce to a smaller MT. So when I want to put an MT3 tool (live center perhaps) into the MT5 spindle, I add an MT5 to MT3 reducer. Here are the specifics:

littlemachineshop.com

Dimensions of Standard Tapers

This page give the dimensions of Morse, Jacobs, Brown & Sharpe, and Jarno tapers.
littlemachineshop.com littlemachineshop.com

The PM-1440-2SM has an MT6 spindle and comes with a reducer sleeve that when pressed into the spindle will reduce it to an MT3 compatible taper.

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