Here is my servo motor project for my craftex b2227L lathe I acquired some salvage and there was some motors and controllers, one day when I was looking for something I came across this motor and after I had reassembled my lathe I remembered the ring and this one had one similar (small lightning bolt) start taking some measurements wow its close, take the motor out try this one its fits (big lightning bolts) turns out it’s a type 56 same so a project was born. Lots of obstacles but after viewing some videos with servo motors and the upside I decided to go for it.
So the idea was to replace the old motor with this servo motor.
This one is 750 watts compared to 550 on the old one and 220 for the new one 110 for the old one
Here is the controller
My first issue was power I didn’t have a 220 outlet in the basement so after consulting the manual I saw there was some 110volt models and 220 volt single phase orientation diagrams and they showed the same power connections no matter the voltage so I had a smaller version of this I decided to start with that, 110 to the controller with the variac and powered up, noisy fan but lights and error messages. Once it was powered up I was able to connect to the controller and use their program sigmawin to have a look inside from the program you can change parameters, tune the motor, reset alarms, monitoring and jog function so lots of fun stuff for later. I continued on and hooked up a motor cleared the errors and even at 110v I was able to jog the motor success! although if I grasped the shaft of the motor tightly I could cause a overcurrent fault. So the next step was to see if this smaller motor would drive the lathe I was able to get the pulley on temporarily and so by holding the motor in my hand I spun up the lathe wow ya it spun nice way quieter ok next step setup the power feed and take a small cut wow pass no problem now I am thinking this is really going to work. I decided to stay with the small motor setup for the learning curve for building the controls in case something went funky. The manuals are available online I used these two pages mainly to get where I ended up originally I had grandiose plans for some of the extra controls available but as the project advanced I scaled back to just what was required. I wanted to have the fwd/rev control done through a single switch through the controller and in theory it shouldn’t be that hard but I was unable to have success (for now) as I went a different route for the fwd/rev but the idea was change some parameters to map a certain input pin# to do the fwd/rev but I wasted enough time on it so I went with a relay to reverse the polarity of the speed control and just control it with a switch. I wasn’t able to tap off the existing 24 volt supply in the box for the speed control as it caused some weird noises so it has its own supply.
I used one relay to do the switching for the reversing of polarity, fwd/rev switch operates the coil
My wiring is like my mistress all over the place and a little rough around the edges but turn her on and the fun begins
One day I’ll straighten it out, but making chips is higher on the priority list. I used the existing stop start switch and replaced the fwd/rev switch with a toggle switch down=fwd up=rev and the control the speed
The mount of the motor had a bit of a challenge as well as the holes lined up but the body of the motor interfered so I milled a bit out to allow everything to line up and fasten
I had to make a new pulley, it was my first time using my boring bars, a skill that needs improving but turned out ok, I have since made version 2 as I wasn’t happy with my placement of the setscrew
I mounted the box behind the lathe off the cabinet, I have a stand for my lathe and it will be a future project so still working on how the final layout will be. The buttons are power on and power off.
Finished off with a tach for the spindle. Overall its been a great project and having the speed control with this motor has been amazing utilizing the gear box I can go from <10 rpm to over 2500 its screaming fast and it has great torque on the low speeds I had it running at 20 rpm taking small cuts, it was so great to watch it peel off like slo-mo for me that’s one of the best things I can slow it down and see how its cutting and I think it will be especially useful when making hss bits to tweak the cut. Another plus from it is threading such amazing control again go as slow as I want till I get bored and speed it up, no more timing that half nut engagement yaaa. Now looking back I feel the motor that was in there is underpowered or weak for the lathe similar to the recent thread on craftex high gear problems mine as well had a tough time getting up to that top speed the odd time maybe colder mornings when the oil was thicker? and I also believe that the spindle never got to 1640rpm as shown, now with the tach I set it at 1640 and it wasn’t that fast but didn’t know any better then but happy to have this one working it feels like a new lathe it cuts so much better having the ability to experiment with almost infinite feeds and speeds is very appealing. I have been relearning the abilities of the lathe and my work has really improved, initially I was making some nice cuts but after @PeterT had mentioned in a post about setup I decided to go back over mine again and found the tailstock out a bit and after going over all that I am getting awesome cuts, straight and I am finding it easier to get to size with smaller cuts. I am looking forward to getting the laptop hooked up and trying the tuning process and having a look at the monitoring, I am curious to see the load on the motor with different cuts exploring that.
So the idea was to replace the old motor with this servo motor.
This one is 750 watts compared to 550 on the old one and 220 for the new one 110 for the old one
Here is the controller
My first issue was power I didn’t have a 220 outlet in the basement so after consulting the manual I saw there was some 110volt models and 220 volt single phase orientation diagrams and they showed the same power connections no matter the voltage so I had a smaller version of this I decided to start with that, 110 to the controller with the variac and powered up, noisy fan but lights and error messages. Once it was powered up I was able to connect to the controller and use their program sigmawin to have a look inside from the program you can change parameters, tune the motor, reset alarms, monitoring and jog function so lots of fun stuff for later. I continued on and hooked up a motor cleared the errors and even at 110v I was able to jog the motor success! although if I grasped the shaft of the motor tightly I could cause a overcurrent fault. So the next step was to see if this smaller motor would drive the lathe I was able to get the pulley on temporarily and so by holding the motor in my hand I spun up the lathe wow ya it spun nice way quieter ok next step setup the power feed and take a small cut wow pass no problem now I am thinking this is really going to work. I decided to stay with the small motor setup for the learning curve for building the controls in case something went funky. The manuals are available online I used these two pages mainly to get where I ended up originally I had grandiose plans for some of the extra controls available but as the project advanced I scaled back to just what was required. I wanted to have the fwd/rev control done through a single switch through the controller and in theory it shouldn’t be that hard but I was unable to have success (for now) as I went a different route for the fwd/rev but the idea was change some parameters to map a certain input pin# to do the fwd/rev but I wasted enough time on it so I went with a relay to reverse the polarity of the speed control and just control it with a switch. I wasn’t able to tap off the existing 24 volt supply in the box for the speed control as it caused some weird noises so it has its own supply.
I used one relay to do the switching for the reversing of polarity, fwd/rev switch operates the coil
My wiring is like my mistress all over the place and a little rough around the edges but turn her on and the fun begins
One day I’ll straighten it out, but making chips is higher on the priority list. I used the existing stop start switch and replaced the fwd/rev switch with a toggle switch down=fwd up=rev and the control the speed
The mount of the motor had a bit of a challenge as well as the holes lined up but the body of the motor interfered so I milled a bit out to allow everything to line up and fasten
I had to make a new pulley, it was my first time using my boring bars, a skill that needs improving but turned out ok, I have since made version 2 as I wasn’t happy with my placement of the setscrew
I mounted the box behind the lathe off the cabinet, I have a stand for my lathe and it will be a future project so still working on how the final layout will be. The buttons are power on and power off.
Finished off with a tach for the spindle. Overall its been a great project and having the speed control with this motor has been amazing utilizing the gear box I can go from <10 rpm to over 2500 its screaming fast and it has great torque on the low speeds I had it running at 20 rpm taking small cuts, it was so great to watch it peel off like slo-mo for me that’s one of the best things I can slow it down and see how its cutting and I think it will be especially useful when making hss bits to tweak the cut. Another plus from it is threading such amazing control again go as slow as I want till I get bored and speed it up, no more timing that half nut engagement yaaa. Now looking back I feel the motor that was in there is underpowered or weak for the lathe similar to the recent thread on craftex high gear problems mine as well had a tough time getting up to that top speed the odd time maybe colder mornings when the oil was thicker? and I also believe that the spindle never got to 1640rpm as shown, now with the tach I set it at 1640 and it wasn’t that fast but didn’t know any better then but happy to have this one working it feels like a new lathe it cuts so much better having the ability to experiment with almost infinite feeds and speeds is very appealing. I have been relearning the abilities of the lathe and my work has really improved, initially I was making some nice cuts but after @PeterT had mentioned in a post about setup I decided to go back over mine again and found the tailstock out a bit and after going over all that I am getting awesome cuts, straight and I am finding it easier to get to size with smaller cuts. I am looking forward to getting the laptop hooked up and trying the tuning process and having a look at the monitoring, I am curious to see the load on the motor with different cuts exploring that.
