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  • Spring meet up in Ontario, April 6/2024. NEW LOCATION See Post #31 Discussion AND THE NEW LOCATION

Recent content by JohnW

  1. JohnW

    Just got a power feed designed for a bridgeport with 5/8" input shaft

    Here is a full description of what I did for mine: I was trolling around Amazon back in November and came across a power feed unit on sale super cheap - $110 CAD, shipping included, so I jumped on it. Nothing but the best brand name for me – “Wen Ding”. They are usually more like $250-$300 USD...
  2. JohnW

    Just got a power feed designed for a bridgeport with 5/8" input shaft

    I got a Wen Ding too! Here it is mounted on my round column mill: And what the bare shaft looked like: I can provide some more pictures and info if you are interested.
  3. JohnW

    Compressed air on the lathe or mill

    I had set up a regulated (10-20psi) air outlet near by lathe and mill in my previous shop that I found very useful. Enough to clear some chips away but usually not enough to embed them in my eyes. I haven't gotten around to that in the current shop. I really should. It is really hard to control...
  4. JohnW

    Change gear possibilities?

    I had similar frustrations with the threading and feed charts on my first lathe (a House of Tools 12x36 FRV 30-GL300C). there was at least one error on the charts, and I was never really quite sure of what change gears were required to do what, or what all the possible feed and threading...
  5. JohnW

    Southbend 14.5" VFD 3ph to 3ph?

    I agree with this comment and the rest of the comments about running a 3ph VFD on single phase. When running a 3ph input VFD on singe (split) phase, it helps to connect two of the three VFD input phases to one leg of your input power and the other VFD input phase to the other leg of the input...
  6. JohnW

    Bridgeport Mill Tachometer

    For most of my hookup wire needs, I re-use old cables. I have a bunch of 25-pair 24ga telephone cable (salvaged from an old building) that I use for bits of solid wire. Just lop off 4" and you have 50 - 4" pieces of 24ga solid wire for breadboarding in a bunch of colors. Old CAT5/6 works OK...
  7. JohnW

    Where to get V-Belt which Princess Auto nor Canadian tire have?

    I have successfully sourced a few belts for my riding mower form these guys: https://www.vbeltsupply.com/ They are in the US and shipping is certainly not free, but they do have good prices on the belts.
  8. JohnW

    Force GL - 300 C x 914

    I used to own one of those. I still have the manual as a pdf and a bunch of data on the internal gearing if you want it. Just PM me. PeterT linked to my for-sale thread above. I was happy with it. I only sold it to upgrade to a larger machine that I got a good deal on. The old machine made...
  9. JohnW

    Bridgeport Mill Tachometer

    I don't directly use the CPU timers. The pin-change interrupts simply increment a count when the pin change occurs (the ATMEGA368 has exactly three independent pin-change sources, so it worked out). I just count the number of pin changes over 250ms (1/4 second). I use the Arduino micros()...
  10. JohnW

    Bridgeport Mill Tachometer

    It is built a lot like yours using an Arduino Nano (with 16MHz ATMega328 CPU @ 16 MHz), a standard 16x2 LCD display with an I2C to parallel converter for the LCD. The heat-shrinked device in the foreground is a constant current source for the LCD backlight. The LCD is a bit of an older device...
  11. JohnW

    Bridgeport Mill Tachometer

    I haven' been around this forum for a while (not for any good reason), but as it turns out Brent H was over at my place picking up various Opel parts for his new project (I am involved with Opels as well) on the Monday after he picked up his new project and had the meetup. I was actually in...
  12. JohnW

    Single phase to 3 phase conversion on Modern GH1440W lathe

    I did almost exactly the same thing for my VFD'd motor. Great minds obviously think alike! My fan is a very powerful 24V unit (from an old IBM mainframe) powered by an old 20V laptop supply. It is powered by a small relay that is connected to one of the VFD outputs. I programmed the VFD to turn...
  13. JohnW

    Adding transformer to a 3ph rotary system

    It is possible to tap into the windings to reduce voltage. I've done that a couple of times with single phase transformers in the past to get a slightly lower secondary voltage. You only have access to the outermost winding though. Are the three phases wound consistently so you can modify each...
  14. JohnW

    Single phase to 3 phase conversion on Modern GH1440W lathe

    That is a cool feature that automatically lowers the PWM frequency as the heat goes up. It is unlikely that most hobby lathes would have overheating problems anyway, even at high frequencies. The current through the IGBT's (proportional to the heat) is also proportional to the amount of load...
  15. JohnW

    Electrical question

    The key is the concept of a "circuit". The power (conventional current) will go from the positive supply to ground (negative supply). The power is then "boosted" back up to the positive supply voltage by the supply (adding energy), and it goes around the circuit again. There needs to be a...
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