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New from Old / Re: The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
« Last post by vtsteam on Today at 07:29:25 PM »Good to see you're back on it, Andrew. 
Recent Posts
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Member Videos / Re: My week this week, my workshop videos!
« Last post by hermetic on Today at 12:17:35 PM »Hi folks,
I have recovered from the dreaded lurgi, and finally got back to work on Friday, just over a week after I was striken! I have put last Wednesdays footage on the beginning of this video and then it cuts straight to Friday this week, and I attacked the Frank steam cleaner with a will, and fixed it! A bit of careful observation later and I realise there is a bit missing, fabricated it, and it worked!
Phil, in mellow fruitful damp and cold East Yorkshire
I have recovered from the dreaded lurgi, and finally got back to work on Friday, just over a week after I was striken! I have put last Wednesdays footage on the beginning of this video and then it cuts straight to Friday this week, and I attacked the Frank steam cleaner with a will, and fixed it! A bit of careful observation later and I realise there is a bit missing, fabricated it, and it worked!
Phil, in mellow fruitful damp and cold East Yorkshire
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New from Old / Re: The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
« Last post by awemawson on Today at 08:51:13 AM »Well after a very long hiatus I am back looking at this massive, and currently none working CNC lathe.
Last time I was here I'd managed to get replacement O rings fitted to the valve block that controls the Turret Spindle movement for changing tools. The entire Tool Disk has to move forwards unlocking from one Curvic coupler and engaging a second one that lets the turret servo motor rotate the tool disk to the correct position. Sadly the valve wasn't the issue and here we are months later still head scratching.
There is a co-axial hydraulic double acting cylinder formed by the disk axis spindle and the housing casting. Piston is of course part of this spindle with hydraulic seals in suitable places. At the moment this spindle will not rotate nor will it move back and forth. My suspicion is that the seals have maybe rolled and jammed but the only way to tell for sure is to dismantle the turret.
Only feasible on the bench as too cramped inside the enclosure so the turret needs to come off. This presents several problems:
A/ The Z axis servo drive electronics failed with the tool disk right up at the chuck end leaving no room to de-tool it for removal (it's a high proportion of the weight of the turret. (Grasping the 50mm lead screw with gloved hand I couldn't turn it to manually move the Z axis to a more accessible position)
B/ I have no 'sky hook' above the turret for lifting, and oh boy is it heavy so as much as possible needs to be stripped before lifting.
So today's objective was to mine into the chuck end of the beast, expose the toothed belt drive and hopefully use the extra diameter of the drive pulleys to apply enough torque the rotate the lead screw.
Having moved a fair pile of boxes and bits and pieces eventually I got to be able to open the access door and get to the Z axis servo motor and it's belt pulleys. Once I got my hands of the pulley actually on the lead screw rotating it was no problem at all
[ You are not allowed to view this attachment ]
The servo motor that turns the lead screw is huge !
[ You are not allowed to view this attachment ]
This allowed me to manually rotate the lead screw moving a turret assembly into a position where at least I could remove the tooling
[ You are not allowed to view this attachment ]
The next stage is to investigate removing the equally large servo motor that is attached to the turret to rotate it and drive the powered tooling, but that's for another day.
Last time I was here I'd managed to get replacement O rings fitted to the valve block that controls the Turret Spindle movement for changing tools. The entire Tool Disk has to move forwards unlocking from one Curvic coupler and engaging a second one that lets the turret servo motor rotate the tool disk to the correct position. Sadly the valve wasn't the issue and here we are months later still head scratching.
There is a co-axial hydraulic double acting cylinder formed by the disk axis spindle and the housing casting. Piston is of course part of this spindle with hydraulic seals in suitable places. At the moment this spindle will not rotate nor will it move back and forth. My suspicion is that the seals have maybe rolled and jammed but the only way to tell for sure is to dismantle the turret.
Only feasible on the bench as too cramped inside the enclosure so the turret needs to come off. This presents several problems:
A/ The Z axis servo drive electronics failed with the tool disk right up at the chuck end leaving no room to de-tool it for removal (it's a high proportion of the weight of the turret. (Grasping the 50mm lead screw with gloved hand I couldn't turn it to manually move the Z axis to a more accessible position)
B/ I have no 'sky hook' above the turret for lifting, and oh boy is it heavy so as much as possible needs to be stripped before lifting.
So today's objective was to mine into the chuck end of the beast, expose the toothed belt drive and hopefully use the extra diameter of the drive pulleys to apply enough torque the rotate the lead screw.
Having moved a fair pile of boxes and bits and pieces eventually I got to be able to open the access door and get to the Z axis servo motor and it's belt pulleys. Once I got my hands of the pulley actually on the lead screw rotating it was no problem at all
[ You are not allowed to view this attachment ]
The servo motor that turns the lead screw is huge !
[ You are not allowed to view this attachment ]
This allowed me to manually rotate the lead screw moving a turret assembly into a position where at least I could remove the tooling
[ You are not allowed to view this attachment ]
The next stage is to investigate removing the equally large servo motor that is attached to the turret to rotate it and drive the powered tooling, but that's for another day.
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Electronics & IC Programing / Re: Pi PICO DRO/Quill-Knee combiner
« Last post by BillTodd on October 30, 2026, 02:52:50 PM »Just adding here that I have been working on a sine-cosine resolver version.
I have a Heidenhain lf482 scale hooked up on s test rig and can reliably detect 10nm movement
Bill
I have a Heidenhain lf482 scale hooked up on s test rig and can reliably detect 10nm movement
Bill
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Member Videos / FIRST RUN! Turning Steam into Power! Wolfgang TS-315 Turbine Generator in Action
« Last post by Jim Dobson on October 29, 2026, 07:35:43 PM »This is a fun bit of gear, I need to come up with a fix for coupling the shaft from the generator to the shaft of the turbine. Googling I have read that it can be flexible (like the silicone tube it came with but has worn over time) or a solid coupling.
It REALLY winds up! It's a steam hungry beast for sure.....fun? You betcha' it's fun 😊😊
It REALLY winds up! It's a steam hungry beast for sure.....fun? You betcha' it's fun 😊😊
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Member Videos / OKMO N01 Hit & Miss Engine Comes to Life! | First Run
« Last post by Jim Dobson on October 24, 2026, 11:28:37 PM »This beautiful little four stroke engine takes its inspiration from the NOVO engines of the early 20th century. Its vertical single cylinder layout, cast brass body and exposed mechanical movement make it a fascinating model to watch in action.
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How to's / Re: Adding lights to a circuit controlling a 997 dc motor
« Last post by John Rudd on October 18, 2026, 10:00:11 AM »Well what a surprise, Google AI says exactly what I said....! (Not an AI fan or advocate...AI crap in =crap out...)
Good to hear it works for you anyway...
Good to hear it works for you anyway...
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How to's / Re: Adding lights to a circuit controlling a 997 dc motor
« Last post by Dell on October 18, 2026, 09:46:12 AM »Thanks for the reply but I asked google this morning & google AI said to wire the red leads to live & piggy back the natural ground lead to the outer terminals & it works.
Dell
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Dell
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How to's / Re: Adding lights to a circuit controlling a 997 dc motor
« Last post by John Rudd on October 18, 2026, 05:01:34 AM »ok, so in Forward direction one relay is energized, in Reverse the other relay is energized....
To add a direction indication, the simplest is to add a lamp (or led with a resistor ) across the coil of each relay..terminals 85 and 86.
if you go the led route, you will need to add a series resistor of about 1k Ohm..(1000 Ohms, Brown Black Red for the colour code..) With the cathode lead connecting to the 85 pin on the relay. The resistor can go in either led lead.. but the Cathode needs to go to pin 85.
To add a direction indication, the simplest is to add a lamp (or led with a resistor ) across the coil of each relay..terminals 85 and 86.
if you go the led route, you will need to add a series resistor of about 1k Ohm..(1000 Ohms, Brown Black Red for the colour code..) With the cathode lead connecting to the 85 pin on the relay. The resistor can go in either led lead.. but the Cathode needs to go to pin 85.
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How to's / Adding lights to a circuit controlling a 997 dc motor
« Last post by Dell on October 17, 2026, 01:40:27 PM »I am in the process of adding a motor to the spindle on my vertical slide on my Pultra lathe, have a 24 volt power supply,PWM, 2 heavy duty 24 volt relay?s,DPDT switch for forward/reverse but I also want to add lights to show motor direction, green for normal cutting direction, yellow for reverse but not sure where to wire them, I am using a wiring diagram originally posted by daGrouch any help would be much appreciated.
Dell
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Dell
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