11-30-2014, 10:16 AM
Always glad to help out a fellow home shop machinist (and now and then, commercial shop machinists!) to see what modern tooling can do even on our older machinery.
I was telling Alan how his newer "old" lathe was in fact a few years newer than mine although mine is a wee bit bigger. I think that Jet lathe could do even better with a more powerful 3-phase motor and VFD drive. It seems to be built well enough to handle up to about 3HP and perhaps 1600 to 1800 rpm at the high end. For now it's OK with it's single phase motor, though I don't know the HP and seemed a bit weak at the high rpm. Maybe the multi-link drive belt isn't transferring all of the motor's power. I'm not trying to be critical Alan, but given you're an "electrically oriented" kind of guy I think you understand what I'm driving at here. Get the Jet running better and you still have the Sheldon for the "low power, low speed" work.
I was telling Alan how his newer "old" lathe was in fact a few years newer than mine although mine is a wee bit bigger. I think that Jet lathe could do even better with a more powerful 3-phase motor and VFD drive. It seems to be built well enough to handle up to about 3HP and perhaps 1600 to 1800 rpm at the high end. For now it's OK with it's single phase motor, though I don't know the HP and seemed a bit weak at the high rpm. Maybe the multi-link drive belt isn't transferring all of the motor's power. I'm not trying to be critical Alan, but given you're an "electrically oriented" kind of guy I think you understand what I'm driving at here. Get the Jet running better and you still have the Sheldon for the "low power, low speed" work.