The jet 1024 are very nice small lathe, especially at the price and condition of the one you described. Since they use a two belt drive system, the motor is very well isolated, and the 3 phase motor is much smoother. I have built three VFD systems for the 1024's, I would suggest the ideal VFD motor size is 1.5Hp but 1.0Hp would also work well, an inverter type (Marathon BlackMax or Baldor IDNM style) give great motor control. The original controls are push buttons on the left side of the head, on the last build I integrated all the controls and tach into one control box. Alternative is to use two small pods, one for the direction controls, the other for speed, jog, E-Stop. The proximity sensor is an electronic stop system that can be integrated in the system and controls the carriage stop position. It works well for threading and repetitive and will repeat to a stop position of better than 0.001". The electronic braking allows quick stopping, but it can be an issue with threaded chucks. Lots of way to set these up, but they are very nice lathes if in good condition.
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