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'Living with an old Synchro' and other tales from my shed.

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DavidA:
Not really sure where to place this. But if anyone objects I'll move it elsewhere.

As many will know I acquired an old (1982) Denford Viceroy 280 Synchro : 12 speed.

This machine had been in use at the company I worked for at least from the time I arrived there ten years ago and was under the care of an old school machinist who really knew what he was doing. He retired a couple of year back and the person who took over his job really didn't have much of a clue.

So the machine stopped. and then was moved into a storage shed. It sat there unloved until the maintenance chief asked me if I knew anyone who would be interested in buying it.

I offered him a very low price and was most surprised when it was accepted.

It was in a truly sorry state.

It was covered in grot; rusty grot. There were still tools in the tray, along with lots of old cutting oil. Fortunately the cutting fluid helped preserve all the tools that were covered in it. It was the bare metal that had rusted. all the ways were fine.

£50 changed hands for carriage and the lathe was delivered to my drive way. My brother and I spent an interesting day getting it from the gate down to the shed. This involved moving two cars that were long term projects and building a roadway out of breeze blocks to get across an unpaved patch.
But we managed. put it roughly in place and called it enough for the day.

It took days to clean it. But the basic machine was clearly in quite good condition.

The first difficulty as that it was three phase. That little adventure has been covered in the posts on three phase conversion.

Now, there does seem to be a lot of controversy when it comes to using capacitors to make a single to three phase convertor. Some seem to heap derision on the whole idea. But it works. You have to put up with the fact you will never get a true three phase supply as the capacitor(s) give you a 90degree third phase and not the 120 degree that one would really like. Small price to pay.

I set up the motor I bought from our esteemed colleague as a pilot and now have a happily running lathe.
When it's cold,  on first starting up, the power to the shed occasionally trips out as the trip is only16 Amp. This will be addressed in the near future. I did find that adding an extra 6 MFD to the pilot motor on start up seems to cure the tripping out.

When it first arrived the lathe was fitted with DC injection braking. This looked to me like trouble just waiting to manifest itself, so I bypassed it and now have the usual forward reverse and stop buttons; Oh yes, and the sud pump when I re-fit its contactor.

There is always a moment of trepidation when you first start up this kind of system after having 'modified' the circuitry. But the moment comes when you have to press the button and hope that there are no dramatics. And there weren't ; nothing happened.

After much musing over the contactor wiring I found that the contactor relays had no return path. I had broken this when I remover the suds pump contactor. So, inset wire into L1 and try again.  Success!

For about five minute.

I found that pressing the start buttons wasn't working anymore.
It turned out to be a sticky 'stop' push button.  A quick squirt with WD 40 and we were back in business.

So, it lives.  then the series two problems started. More on that later.

A quick question to anyone who has a similar machine.
On the top there is an oil fill plug. But no apparent level glass. Anyone know how you check the oil on the headstock ?
The gearbox has both filler plug and sight glass.

Dave.

John Rudd:
Interesting story....great to hear a bit about how other folk acquired their machinery and the toil and trouble caused when installing them....sadly I have nothing to offer, everything I have was bought new and installed relatively easy, except for the Ajax mill I bought from ebay, but thats another story....

An esteemed colleague....? Moi?.... :lol:

chipenter:
I don't think its a fill plug on the headstock http://www.lathes.co.uk/viceroy/page3.html stands a good chance to be holdeing the cover down .

awemawson:
Nice to hear the story BUT

 :worthless: :worthless: :worthless: :worthless: :worthless:

DavidA:
Andrew,

Pictures will follow; trust me.

Jeff,

Thanks for the link with it's most excellent picture; wish mine was as clean.

But that black object on the top really is a plastic oil filler plug. it even  has 'oil' printed on it.

The top is held down with four capscrews in the corners.

The other plug I refer to is the one on the gearbox facing down the bed, along with it's related sight glass below it.

Dave.

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