Thread: Lathe buying advice.

Sounds like good machine for your needs POD, you should be able to do most things with that. Taper turning attachment is a great feature, and I wouldn't worry to much about the lack of speed, 750 rpm is fast enough for most things.

Cheers, Mick.

Originally Posted by superquag

So.... you were planning on using your new 3 phase lathe to build a rotary phase converter ?

I see a flaw in the plans.....

Try here:-

3 phase vsd | eBay

Seems that the problem with powering a lathe with a VFD (or VSD) is you can't have any switching downstream of the VFD, so the inbuilt reverse switching and the motor cutout on the foot brake can only be used if completely rewired back to the VFD as relays. Also a second VFD would be required to run the coolant pump, which has it's own 1/8hp 3-phase motor. Looks like it might be simpler to build the rotary phase convertor. You don't need a lathe to build one of these, it uses a 3-phase idling motor and capacitors. I'm sure it could always be improved with the lathe once it's running though!