I purchased an old Logan 210 in fair shape but missing most of the change gears. Used prices for these gears is painful and a QCGB was out of the question. I don't do a lot of threading but coming from a variable speed mini lathe, I grew accustomed to speeding and slowing things at will to deal with my lack of patience. The one lead-screw speed my small selection of gears allowed on the 210 grew old with the first project
Initially I just planned to add a variable speed lead screw motor and be done with it. When I tested with some components I had laying around, I realized if I could just control the motor with relation to the spindle, I could also do threading.
To my surprise, someone has already done all the hard work of software and made it very simple to convert. Following the Clough42 method, the only work involved that he didn't figure out for me was fitting stepper motor and encoder. This is obviously different for each lathe.
So for less than the cost of replacing all the change gears, or much less than a QCGB, I outfitted my lathe with the ability to thread all the common tpi and metric pitches, along with instant variable lead screw drive rate from 0.001in/spindle rev to 0.40in.
The goal was to get it all under the hood and still use a couple gears because, in my opinion, an old lathe without gears isn't right. Some may say an old lathe with a computer controlled lead-screw isn't right either but I'm only on this planet for a limited amount of time and don't worry too much about those things. As long as it can be easily converted back to original, and this can in a matter of minutes, I'm ok with it.
I designed the stepper motor holder to attach where the gear banjo normally does. It's 3D printed at the moment for testing, and I was planning to make it out of aluminum, but the printed part is holding up perfectly fine and may just stay that way. Same thing with the two gears and encoder holder. Unfortunately, the encoder I got is just a bit too large to fit under the cover and allow it to close. I have my sights on a smaller one that will fit the bill but I'm in no hurry. Ironically, I mounted the control box using two of the threaded holes on the bed where a QCGB would mount The control interface box is also temporary as I plan to make a nicer one in the future. I used a smaller stepper than the one most folks are trying to shoehorn onto there ELS projects since I have a 3:1 ratio on the final drive and felt the big one was overkill. I can't stall the carriage by pushing with all my might while engaged and haven't yet stalled it while making any normal cuts in steel. I did take a stupid deep cut, that wasn't going to come out well no matter what lathe it was on, and it did shutdown and save my tool. So I guess that's another plus for this arrangement.
Going from turning to threading, in seconds, without getting covered in grease while fumbling with gears is awesome but changing from say 0.010"/spindle rev for rough cutting and then down to .004" or 0.002" or whatever, is even more enjoyable. I still have a little gear noise for nostalgia and even more when in back gears, so it's the best of both worlds.
I've been using it for a couple months with no issues and couldn't be happier! If anyone is thinking about doing this, my opinion is it's well worth it so don't wait.
It's not a project for the total noob with steppers and electronics but is easy to follow the Clough42 instructions if somewhat familiar with these things. He did a great job with the software and the complicated part of controlling a stepper to lead screw arrangement. He made this possible and easy. So many thanks to Clough42.
Andy
Initially I just planned to add a variable speed lead screw motor and be done with it. When I tested with some components I had laying around, I realized if I could just control the motor with relation to the spindle, I could also do threading.
To my surprise, someone has already done all the hard work of software and made it very simple to convert. Following the Clough42 method, the only work involved that he didn't figure out for me was fitting stepper motor and encoder. This is obviously different for each lathe.
So for less than the cost of replacing all the change gears, or much less than a QCGB, I outfitted my lathe with the ability to thread all the common tpi and metric pitches, along with instant variable lead screw drive rate from 0.001in/spindle rev to 0.40in.
The goal was to get it all under the hood and still use a couple gears because, in my opinion, an old lathe without gears isn't right. Some may say an old lathe with a computer controlled lead-screw isn't right either but I'm only on this planet for a limited amount of time and don't worry too much about those things. As long as it can be easily converted back to original, and this can in a matter of minutes, I'm ok with it.
I designed the stepper motor holder to attach where the gear banjo normally does. It's 3D printed at the moment for testing, and I was planning to make it out of aluminum, but the printed part is holding up perfectly fine and may just stay that way. Same thing with the two gears and encoder holder. Unfortunately, the encoder I got is just a bit too large to fit under the cover and allow it to close. I have my sights on a smaller one that will fit the bill but I'm in no hurry. Ironically, I mounted the control box using two of the threaded holes on the bed where a QCGB would mount
The control interface box is also temporary as I plan to make a nicer one in the future. I used a smaller stepper than the one most folks are trying to shoehorn onto there ELS projects since I have a 3:1 ratio on the final drive and felt the big one was overkill. I can't stall the carriage by pushing with all my might while engaged and haven't yet stalled it while making any normal cuts in steel. I did take a stupid deep cut, that wasn't going to come out well no matter what lathe it was on, and it did shutdown and save my tool. So I guess that's another plus for this arrangement.Going from turning to threading, in seconds, without getting covered in grease while fumbling with gears is awesome but changing from say 0.010"/spindle rev for rough cutting and then down to .004" or 0.002" or whatever, is even more enjoyable. I still have a little gear noise for nostalgia and even more when in back gears, so it's the best of both worlds.
I've been using it for a couple months with no issues and couldn't be happier! If anyone is thinking about doing this, my opinion is it's well worth it so don't wait.
It's not a project for the total noob with steppers and electronics but is easy to follow the Clough42 instructions if somewhat familiar with these things. He did a great job with the software and the complicated part of controlling a stepper to lead screw arrangement. He made this possible and easy. So many thanks to Clough42.
Andy
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