Lathe Motor Conversion to Variable Speed DC.

I recemtly turned a bunch of bowls on my lathe and I was having a lot of vibration problems. My lathe has only 5 speeds. To change speeds, I have to turn the lathe off, set my tool down, wait for it to stop spinning, open up the door, change belt, close door… (In other words it takes a while.) Then you would have to settle for that speed, and if your bowl was a little out of round, your lathe is bouncing. So I went looking around and went on to ebay and found my self a Leeson DC Motor. It is a 3/4 HP, has 27 pounds of torque. It runs at 90 VDC on normal household electric. I also bought a DC Motor Control made by KB Electronics. It has a 1 HP 110 Volt Resistor in it. It also has a Forward/Reversing switch in it as well. That really helps out when sanding.

After I did the motor conversion, I turned 7 bowls. Man is that nice!! All you do to change speeds is turn a dial. No longer changing a belt. But luckily I was able to keep my old pulleys and belt, so I didn’t have to new pulleys.

I also have a video of it on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFVuJ0hwNnw&feature=plcp

-- Most people say "Measure Twice, Cut Once." I say, "Cut Twice, Measure Once".