Pm1340gt Led Back Splash Light

[mksj]

You know your getting old when everything looks darker and you need more and more light to see anything. I have a single car bay as my work space, and the overhead lighting is not ideally located. Maybe at some point I will try to add some better overhead lighting, but there is no crawl space to pull additional wires and the garage door would block any lights when open. So I have tried to improve the lighting at my machines. I try to minimize shadows by using multiple lights, including light rings and light bars. I prefer slightly whiter light (3000-4000K), and sometimes use different types of bulbs/LEDs to give the right color balance and minimize eye fatigue.

So the standard PM1340GT in the deluxe package includes a 24V arm light which is a very nice unit. I use a LED bi-pin bulb in it, just my preference. I remounted the light in the center of the back splash to give me a better angle and a wider range of movement. The back splash is a bit flexible, so I machined a new wider light mounting bracket, which which improves the rigidity. I was interested in providing even back lighting along the rear of the back splash to decrease shadows from the overhead arm light. I ended up ordering a 39" 12W LED light bar (3000K) which runs off of my 24VDC system (used for the VFD relays and main arm light). The light bar is mounted under the top back splash lip and is articulated so one can rotate the light bar along it long axis for optimal lighting.

There are lots of 12VDC light bars in various configurations, but not many 24VDC. If you did not have a VDC power source, it would also be easy to add a small universal power supply or use a wall wart. Be sure if you go this route, especially for the unit I installed, that you get the one with the cable included. The cable is about 5 feet long. This is the unit I ordered:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-33-24V-...703?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item418c48d94f
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5V-12V-24V-...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item540f9a5c04

Overall, I am quite pleased with the improved lighting and it makes it much easier to see what your doing. I would have preferred a light bar with more LEDs similar to the light LED rings, but I have only seen these in the 12VDC versions (and they usually are more expensive). The light bar is ~$20, if you need a power supply add another $10-12 for a 50-100W VDC power supply in the voltage you need. You could use it to power the arm light also. I do not use a switch for the light bar, it is hardwired to the power supply which turns on with the added lathe power switch. If your machine does not have a power disconnect, you would want to add a switch, or wire it to go on with the arm light.

 

[coolidge]

I am so stealing your idea mksj nice! Like you I'm getting a bit older and need more and more light. I have a 3 car garage lit with 36 Daylight 6500k bulbs. At night my garage looks like the close encounters of the 3rd kind mother ship ahahaha!

 

[fixit]

HOME DEPOT is now selling 110 volt 60 watt LED light bulbs in packages of two for under $5. I just purchased 6 packages, they are really bright.

fixit

 

[oldgascar]

I really like your light setup. My lathe is a 12 X 24, so I will need to look for a shorter light bar.
I an curious about your proximity switch to control the carriage travel in he Z axis. I presume it sends an input signal to the ac drive to stop tne spindle motor. Do you have it set up to reverse the spindle also for threading ?
Do you have a brake resistor tied to the VFD to absorb the excess energy during quick stopping ?
Also curious about the VFD settings for acceleration and decelleration.

Thaks,

Have A Great Day !!!

Bob

 

[Dman1114]

MKSJ...


Do u use your lathe for anything other than modeling gadgets??? man that thing is clean.

Not quite sure what else one can do to a lathe...... that thing has everything .

Im just jealous and wish i bought a PM1340 LOL..... I just recently purchased a carriage stop only cost me 1800$ Plus materials and time

(pm25-mv) then I'm going with the proximity switch for threading...

 

[mksj]

Yes, I use it, just like to keep a clean work area. Part of the fun is figuring out how to make things and get them to work. I also dabble in electronics and old tubes, but my background is medicine. The lathe is a new learning experience for me, I use my mill a lot more. Built the X and Z drives, installed the DRO, LED lighting etc. One of these days I will upgrade to a knee type, but I have a very small workshop area, and also do some woodworking.

The proximity sensor stop is really a pleasure to use, I was machining some small parts (bronze soft tips for the external spider) very close to a collet and the repeatability was withing a few 1/10,000th. Also great for threading. The only problem is it is best suited for a VFD equipped machine with electronic braking. The PM1340GT is a very nice lathe, but ended up doubling my budget on what I thought I was going to spend, and then there is all the tooling. I figured I probably would not need to upgrade for a looong time, so worth the investment and tweaking.

Mark

The mill was there first, and was modified.

PM1340GT Spider

 

[tmarks11]

Is that carriage stop proximity sensor wired into your VFD to command shutdown at > than the normal ramp rate?

 

[mksj]

The proximity switch used has a NC and NO switch and works with a voltage of ~10-30VDC up to 200mA. The NC switch can be wired to interrupt VFD power to the input control terminals to the forward/reverse command inputs, so woks like an E-Stop. I have two braking algorithms that I can manually set in the VFD by a switch. I use 2 stage braking most of the time, which is 3 seconds, the other is single stage which is set to 1 second. When using the proximity sensor I use the 1 second braking, which when threading stops the chuck in 1-2 revolutions, and almost the exact same position. You could also use the NO switch on the proximity sensor to trigger another VFD input that could change the ramp rate when activated; or use the NC input to activate 2 stage braking in normal use and when it opens the VFD will revert to 1 stage braking/stop the VFD. So a number of different possibilities on how it can be set-up. There are also AC proximity sensors, so in a non-VFD lathe it could be used to interrupt power to the contactors and shut down the lathe.

 

[Dman1114]

That is nice.....


Yeh the VFD with the braking makes threading so nice.... I set mine to 1 sec for threading and have to manually stop it... makes it so much more predicable .

I used to get really nervous threading to a shoulder and i would have stop way early and walk it in by hand.... now i can stop it close and use the jog (set really slow ) and bring it right to the mark.

soon as i get a feel for the mill my first project will be the carriage stop bracket.



I like your spider knurled nuts I'm gonna have to borrow that idea...

 

[mksj]

Alignment of the QCTP using a 123 block; external spider fingers holding the rod; 1/2"-13 thread on a 5/8" rod cut at 320 RPM, the half-nut is kept engaged, I just back out the cross slide and reverse at the end of each pass. The relief was chamfered after the thread was cut.