Atlas lathe 10d restoration

[Cobrage401]

PWM and Motor work

Hello all hope you all had great holidays!!!

Well I have been working on the new travers gearbox that I mentioned previously in this thread and its been given me problems so I decided to take a break from that installation and move to something else. The lathe resurrection is basically completely done except for getting that travers case working and general tweaking of the lathe. We will post more on the above later.

Motor: below is the photo of the motor I went with. It appears nice and is readily available. It's a 90VDC motor 1HP 10amp and is rated for continuous duty. The build quality also looks pretty good. Unfortunately its blue and doesn't match the paint scheme lol lol.

Motor pulley: I purchased a 3" dual V belt cast iron pulley to accommodate two of the pulley locations in the head stock. The pulley has two sets crews and runs true. Like the motor looks good however time will tell.

PWM: I went with the KBMD Penta PWM and the below information is my thoughts on this device...

The KBMD is well made and worth the extra money compared to others regarding its build quality however it's not perfect... let's look

1) If you're looking at buying one you will also need to purchase the extra parts for it to work. If your running a 1HP 90VDC motor like me you will need the below parts and the total price is $236 shipped. You will need the armature fuse rated for a 1HP motor and the plug in resistor rated for a 1HP motor. If your running a 1HP motor or 2HP motor you will also need the optional heat sink. Running less than a 1HP motor the heat sink isn't required. Now if you want the forward/reverse and brake switch you will also need that option. Check the website for the required options for your size motor. Parts REQUIRED for any size motor are the armature fuse and the motor plug in resistor.

2) comes in a nise case and the switches operate nicely.

3) Has all the required trimming pots on the board to adjust to your motor spindle speed.

4) Directions are pretty good. During the installation of the forward/reverse switch I was a bit confused for the directions make reference to short and long red and black wires however with the switch not installed the are basically the same length however when you install the switch it will become clear the difference between the short and long pairs. My long pair of red and black wires had a wire tie and the other pair didn't.

5) Installation of the forward/reverse switch will require some modifications in my mind!!. First the switch comes with a nut attached and the manual said a spare nut is provided incase you lose the original nut. USE the spare nut its smaller then the one original on the switch and fits inside the cover mounting holes were the original is to big and you will not be able to install the case cover!! The case cover is installed with two screws on the top as the manual points out. The cover is hard to slide off I actually went looking for other screws thinking it was still screwed in someplace lol.

6) Forward/reverse switch placement and mod. Ok now looking at the photos below you will see that the installation of the switch placed the switches backing plate almost touching the armature fuse!!! I removed the original fuse and installed a traditional plastic fuse holder. I didn't use the original fuse holder because I didn't want to drill into the case however one has room to do that if one chooses.

7) The case: looking at the photos you will see the new 3/8 electrical strain reliefs I installed. Strangely the case had one grommet installed and the other hole was just a cover. The hole with just the cover is larger then the other hole however the 3/8 size fits both.

8) Case and switch: when the switch is installed into the case it covers one of the access holes to the trimmer potentiometer!! I was able to still access it using the adjacent hole for the other trimmer ( just barely) one may opt to make your motor speed adjustments before installing the forward/reverse switch.

9) Motor brake: The motor brake works well however given that we have zamic parts in this lathe I don't think I will utilize this option.

10) Power: This PWM supports 110VAC and 220VAC power input from your mains. One doesn't need to have a separate DC power supply like other PWM. My unit was shipped to me in the 220VAC position so living in the US I moved it to 110VAC.

11) Heatsinks: in the photos below you will see the optional heat sink attached to the bottom of the case. This option is required according to the manufacturer for any motor from 1HP up. I'm actually not sure how effective this is for this unit has 6 transistors mounted to the back of the case. In order to deliver maximum heat transfer the sinks should be attached to the back of the transistors and not on the bottom of the case. I might make a aluminum sink for this later to mount behind the transistors.

Now I'm working on the actual motor mounting system and will post that when completed.

 

[Cobrage401]

Motor Mounting, T Nut and Travers gear case

Motor Mount: below are the photos of the motor mount ( sorry dirty bench lol ) the black T mount was acquired from work and modified on my mill. It's a steel T slide from a industrial roller system.

The aluminum base was milled to 1" thick 7x12". Holes were slotted for belt adjustment and three holes were drilled, counter sunk and taped to hold the motor bracket. The aluminum was also fly cutted on the top and bottom for flatness. I was going to paint this however it didn't make much sense for it will probably just get all dinged and I don't have to worry about it rusting.

T-Nut: I decided to make a T-Nut in preparation for a QC tool holder today from some scrap cast iron.

Travers gear case: I was able to solve the problem with the case. I had to slot the three holes slightly adding .02" and also need to make three .02" shim washers for one of the gears was scrapping the apron. I didn't take any photos of the mod for if you purchased one your milage will vary.

At this stage the lathe is turning nicely and the apron is also running smoothly using the change gears. The change gears still need some work or maybe I will replace them with nylon gears.

Work still needed...

1) order a QC tool post

2) mount and run all motor wires and control box.

3) build the touchdro kit.

4) install two iGaging dro scales.

5) alignment and gib adjustments.

6) whatever I forgot above lol

 

[Cobrage401]

First test cut:

As I get closer to completion I decided to make a quick test run ... photo below shows not bad and has promising results before alignments. Probably the first time this lathe turned since 1936-1937.

Cross slid handle:

Below is a photo of a brand new handle. Fits nice on the 10D however I did need to mill the end nut down to fit for with the new handle I didn't have alot of working thread remaining.

 

[Cobrage401]

Alignment Time :

Ok let's play lol... my innately turned piece above and further turns on the same round stock is now showing much better results in terms of cut quality even with the wrong QC holder I installed lol. I temporally made some mounting solutions to fit my old mini lathe QC on the lathe lol. What is happening is I'm turning a taper of .05 over the length of the stock that is only 2 1/5 inches long!!! Wow it's out.

Now like I mentioned before I'm no machinists I'm just a garage tinkerer having fun so with that said let's look at what I'm going to attempt to do in order to fix this. All thoughts and suggestions are much welcome!!.

First I have some tools coming in today that we will use and I will give my thoughts on them when they arrive

The assumption is that I will need to adjust twisting in the ways and I already know that the headstock needs alignment.

I will post each operation in separate threads as a go along.

So the first part of what I can check with the tools on hand is how flat the ways are from headstock to tales tock. If the ways had a significant dip in its travel from ware the only way to resolve that is sending out the ways for grinding or scraping them in. So let's hope all is good.

Measuring with my .01" indicator from headstock to tail stock I'm showing basically no movement when indicating we're the cross slid travers up and down. And again we're the tailstock travel's. I'm showing basically no movement in the meter. Now this only shows me that I have no dipping in the ways photos below of the setup.

Back when my alignment tools arrive.

Dave

 

[markba633csi]

Dave: that last measurement is liable to mean very little except for perhaps detecting very short dips in the ways that would likely be visible to the naked eye anyhow, using Dykem and a straight edge. Generally a lathe cannot measure itself
What you want to do is first level the lathe then cut a series of test bars, then measuring the bar at two locations.
Nice motor and drive by the way, variable speed is a great feature
-Mark

 

[Cobrage401]

Dave: that last measurement is liable to mean very little except for perhaps detecting very short dips in the ways that would likely be visible to the naked eye anyhow, using Dykem and a straight edge. Generally a lathe cannot measure itself
What you want to do is first level the lathe then cut a series of test bars, then measuring the bar at two locations.
Nice motor and drive by the way, variable speed is a great feature
-Mark

Thanks Mark!! Yes I have a new bar and level arriving today to do exactly what you suggested. I'm staring out the window waiting for fedex like a kid waiting for Santa lol

The motor setup is working well and thanks! Reverse isn't much of a option as it spins the chuck off lol.

Dave

 

[Cobrage401]

Alignment Bar :

Ok just off the FedEx truck is this alignment bar. One can get them pretty easily and it appears the one like I have are all made in India. At least the lower priced bar's are.

I got the bar with a MT3 taper so I can align the headstock and then later use the bar to align the tailstock.

It appears to be nicely made however it has .09" runout WOW!! ... guess I will need another bar. I have almost no runout in the spindle taper and on the spindle. Classic get what you pay for!!

Looks like I will have to start with the ways leveling first.

 

[Cobrage401]

Machinists Level and Live center:

Yesterday my new level and center arrived.

I decided on the newer version of the

Accusize Industrial Tools 6 inch Professional Master Precision Level in Fitted Box, Accuracy 0.0002''/10''​

​

The level is nicely mad and working well. If your like me and this is your first time using a level like this your in for a treat lol just looking at it the bubble moves. They are very sensitive and at times the bubble moves very slowly. Now I decided on this instead of the Starrett only because I was able to get this next day. The Starrett was only $17 dollars more. I will be using this to align the ways.

Live center:

Yes another Accusize product ....

Accusize Industrial Tools MT2 Precision Medium Duty Live Center, Overall Length 5.83'', 0537-6436​

Another well made product. Its showing around. 003" runout on my Brown and Sharpe. 005 indicator. I will take that anyday I will be using this during the tailstock alignment. Naturally this will also be used frequently during normal lathe operations unlike the test bar that will be seldom used.


Naturally I don't endorse any products I'm just mentioning what I'm using for this restoration and my opinion

Dave

 

[Cobrage401]

Ways Leveling:

Just wanted to show the starting point with the level at the headstock and tailstock. I'm showing a large bed twist.

I spent half the day yesterday working on this and didn't make much progress as this is tedious and will try again today.

 

[Cobrage401]

Help!!!

Ok I'm not sure I'm understanding this totally...

Below photos shows the level indicating pretty good now after some ugly looking shims under the lathe bolts lol... now when I move the level as shown below to two places in the center of the lathe its off. This lathe has no adjustments to the center ways unless maybe some jacks were installed.

My question is... is this normal? Its almost a futile mission if you can't make the level true along the entire ways no?

Head and tail level positions... the parallels are just for repeatable with level.

Two readings in the center of the lathe...