XYZ1400 lathe repairs and upgrade

[paulhar]

Thought I would do a thread on my new to me XYZ 1400 lathe. Doesn't seam to be alot of info on these on the tinterweb so thought it would be a bit of info for those interested and a bit of an introduction to myself.

Its an indian/taiwanese thingy which has had a fair bit of abuse in an oil companies workshop , but the price was right, my Rollo elf wasn't cutting the mustard and im a sucker for punishment.

Got it home thanks to my mates recovery truck , its heavy, and its bigger than i thought :-)

 

[paulhar]

First few issues
1) DRO only has one scale fitted, and cant find compatible scales to fit , aliexpress ordered for some chineesium DRO setup.
2) dickson toolpost copy only works on one side , locking bolt sheared so made a new un
3) main bearings are a bit noisy, ordered new ones ( merc lorry wheel bearing size so only 50 quid for them)
4) all the slides are gummed up with loads of backlash (2mm on some) , have striped n cleaned but cross slide screw thread definitely past its best
5) its 3 phase , I have a vfd but this motor cant be wired for 240v , got it working "sort-of" wired 440v on 240v VFD but power is way down.
6) imperial thread gear is u/s
7) chuck hard jaws u/s , luckily theres some soft jaws with it

On a plus point it works "yay" , run out is only a couple of thou and i,ve managed to turn a few bits already . Well chuffed.

New Dickson locking bolt made from an m24 bolt i had lying about , got the locking offset machined by using a 2mm shim on one of the 3 jaws, not quite four jaw precision but does the job.


.

Hub for my mates jag , this took 8 hours to do , bearing fit was more trial and error than skill , cant wait to get new DRO fitted

 

[Brad93]

Usually headstock bearings are ABEC5 or above.

Well beyond the tolerance of wheel bearings.

 

[paulhar]

timken bearings i've bought, abec rating unknown , hopefully better than than the noisy ones fitted .

Plenty of skateboards out there running "abec 5" bearings , good enough for a machine tool probably not , but will find out soon enough.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Welcome aboard, Paul. And well done on getting pics up first go.

Looking forward to your updates as you work on the lathe.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Usually headstock bearings are ABEC5 or above.

Well beyond the tolerance of wheel bearings.

Sad but true. There is a reason those Gamet bearings are pricey, you pay for micron precision.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Also worth noting is the type of headstock gearing, helical gears will be much quieter, and whether the oil is warmed up from running in. Did you lift it from the bed or under the spindle? The latter is a good way to ruin the spindle bearings.

 

[Pete.]

If you want to run it on 3 phase 415v there's a guy near me with a 4HP static converter. It's in the non-members sale items. I'm seeing him Friday have a look at it. He might take an offer.

 

[Hopefuldave]

Welcome Paul!

If the motor CAN'T be wired for 240v (two-speed?) it's possible to do a simple modification / hack on a 415-in VFD to run from 240v, invalidates all warranties and approvals, probably causes ozone depletion and Gerbil Warming, but works - older VFDs are best for it*, as they have separate banks of reservoir capacitors that each take half the DC bus voltage - a certain VFD vendor I'm pretty sure does this on new ones and quadruples the price, although newer ones may object to not having 3-phase feed and shut down, possibly they also hack the firmware?

Dave H. (the other one)

*ABB ACS300 series for instance - go for one rated at least 1.5x the motor power if you go this way, reasons.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

and Gerbil Warming

 

[God mode restorations]

Sad but true. There is a reason those Gamet bearings are pricey, you pay for micron precision.

Yes gamet bearings are big money. They are machined down to 5 microns and £4000 + for a set.

 

[paulhar]

If you want to run it on 3 phase 415v there's a guy near me with a 4HP static converter. It's in the non-members sale items. I'm seeing him Friday have a look at it. He might take an offer.

.
I think ill just wait for a cheap motor to turn up on fleabay or local auction. Not sure to go with 3hp which would be at limit of my vfd or downgrade to 2 hp ....should be enough but not sure.

 

[paulhar]

Yes gamet bearings are big money. They are machined down to 5 microns and £4000 + for a set.

I actualy cant see the xyz lathe company using expensive bearings...the manual just states the standard size which hapens to be the same as a merc lorry. Will see if i i can get a look at old bearings before taking apart. But whats the worst that can happen? You can adjust alighnment of the bearing with some offset dowels that are fitted, and how bad can timken bearings be?

 

[paulhar]

Also worth noting is the type of headstock gearing, helical gears will be much quieter, and whether the oil is warmed up from running in. Did you lift it from the bed or under the spindle? The latter is a good way to ruin the spindle bearings.

Lifted by bed. I knocked it into neutral and spun headstock, definately on the noisey side of things.

 

[Pete.]

I'd run some cutting tests before pulling the spindle. Those gear head lathes can be very rough-sounding and still do good worwork.

 

[Dieselman 63]

I'd run some cutting tests before pulling the spindle. Those gear head lathes can be very rough-sounding and still do good worwork.

Exactly my point. My Bantam is err... a little noisy!

@spencer 427 i think they’ve even got them down to 0.5-1micron runout. That’s amazing really.

 

[paulhar]

The replacement bearings are 32012x and 32014x in size , that's all the manual says for the bearing specification.

As said its pretty damn noisy , in neutral , ie not revolving anything other than the output shaft with the chuck on and me spinning it by hand.

I don't think these bearings are available in any kind extra precision types... but I could be wrong....also I'm not going to be making turbines for hotwheels with it so if it keeps a shaft within a couple of thou and still be able to listen to the radio ill be happy enough.

It does machine ok on a reasonable cut but wasn't the best on sub 20mm diameter , but that could be a number of factors , most likely being I can only get it up to 750 rpm on the current weedy motor power setup and my cutting tools are discount bangood stuff .

 

[slim_boy_fat]

and my cutting tools are discount bangood stuff .

Quite a few of us here have those.

 

[MattH]

The trouble with low precision bearings will be chatter.
They could actually stop you from being able to part off or cut radii.

Now I’m note endorsing £4K’s worth of Gamet bearings which would never of been fitted to anything but a high end toolroom lathe in the first place. But I can’t see a wheel bearing being built to the kind of runout and tightness tolerances as a properly specified headstock bearing.

 

[God mode restorations]

The trouble with low precision bearings will be chatter.
They could actually stop you from being able to part off or cut radii.

Now I’m note endorsing £4K’s worth of Gamet bearings which would never of been fitted to anything but a high end toolroom lathe in the first place. But I can’t see a wheel bearing being built to the kind of runout and tightness tolerances as a properly specified headstock bearing.

Gamet bearings are fitted to Colchester lathes. And the student is definitely not a high end tool room lathe.