Denford viceroy 280 VS

[RichardM]

I assume you've been here
http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2057

 

[Sinbad]

Yes, the lathe came with a printed version.

 

[Sinbad]

Many thanks, pretty obvious really, just goes to show my limited knowledge of lathe design and operation!

 

[chrisg3103]

Ok, hate to leave a thread hanging so ill wrap this one up! Been a bit busy...
So left off about here -

Apron back together so started to look at quick change tool posts, this one is from my Bantam 2000. The bundle of tooling and bits that came with the Denford contained a few tool holders, so was interested to see if they fitted, and they did!
But the Bantams tool post was a bit too big, as can be seen in the picture, tool holder is maxed out at its minimum.

Next i borrowed the Bantams 3 jaw chuck, handy them both being D3-1. Much more usable size

Tailstock and an RDG tools quick change tool post, shiney tool holders came with the post, big ones are the Bantams and the smaler dirty ones came with the Denford.

20mm capacity, just enough for the nice sandvik tooling that i found in the box of bits

And random tool holders fit the RDG tool holder

Lathes first job was to turn a reducer for the tool post, and to turn a step into the clamp nut thingy, the top of the tool holder clamp was catching when trying to take the holder out.
The random threaded part is just a practice to try out my new indexable turning tool, is very nice.

Also got myself a indexable parting off tool, except there was a slight problem....
For those that cant see it the tool holder is as high as it can go and the tool is still about 5mm below centre!

So one bit of plate later

Everything is good

And its as good as done, if there is ever such a thing. Still to sort proper controls and probably mount the inverters under the cabinet, but its making chips so all good

 

[addjunkie]

Looks well, I lack the patience for such things!

 

[mikegolding]

Can you raise the tool holder high enough by having the flange on the adjusting screw sitting on top of the clamp rather than in the groove ?.
I often have to do this when using boring bars.
Mike.

 

[chrisg3103]

quite possibly! didnt think of that, is an option for the future if i need another few mm

 

[Sinbad]

Looking at your photo of your gear train they appear different than mine. My lathe is a Denford TDS/280, Serial No.31999/S.
My stud gear is 16 teeth
The outer quadrant gears are 24 teeth (top), 64 teeth (bottom)
The inner quadrant gears are 66 teeth (top), 22 teeth (bottom)
The gearbox input shaft gear is 66 teeth.
Is my set up wrong?

 

[chrisg3103]

Sorry, didnt see the notifictation for this. See if this picture helps:

The way you have described yours it seems the two big double sided gears are the other way around? stud gear dosnt matter as you change that according to the table on the front. But i think the sliding gear IN and OUT will be different.
With my set up ^^^ the sliding gear is IN (gear with knurled knob) so 64/24 = 2.66:1 but with the gears flipped the ratio would be 66/22 = 3:1. I think...
But then again you have a different model of lathe, without stripping it again im not sure the gears are able to be altered?

 

[Sinbad]

Thanks for this, my gearbox is the 8 position variety so no need to change stud gears. I do however think my stud gear is wrong (too small) as to engage it the quadrant arm is at the extreme end of the slot and fouling the door. Does anybody know what size it should be?

 

[chrisg3103]

Im guessing you have a different gear arrangement as you have an imperial gearbox, this is from the manual for the 280vs:

With the metric one you change the stud gear, A B C D E F or G, according to that table ^ no mention of stud gear for imperial though..

 

[Sinbad]

Hi Chris, I have not had the lathe for long, and I know very little about it. As you say, it has the 8 position imperial gearbox. It came with the metric transposing quadrant fitted and a 16 teeth stud gear which I believe is the "A" gear for metric screw cutting. It also came with the original imperial quadrant which I have now refitted. Reading through various parts list I think it should have a 24 teeth stud gear (no change gears needed for the 8 position gearbox) Can anybody verify this and if so does anybody know where I can get the 24 teeth gear?

 

[chrisg3103]

Bit or an update, the variable speed drive is no more! the vibration was doing my head in and the final straw was when the vibration got so bad it started cutting waves in the parts! so, i did this:

First had to get the thing out to get the stupid motor cover off, is a horrible thing. Put a dti on the top pulley to measure the runout, was 2mm! took pulley off and measured shaft to make sure it wasnt bent, all good.

Skip ahead a few steps and tada! roughly measured the largest and smallest diameters the pulleys get to and came up with 160mm and 60mm, but ended up with 63mm as thats all that was availabe.
19mm taper lock bushes and a SPAX 900 belt, motor mount is a mess but it works... in reverse, as the motor swings out the tension is released, couldn't pivot it at the bottom as the horrible cover gets in the way, speaking of which.

I got a bit annoyed with it and made a few extra holes and made some extra room at the back with a hammer for the cable gland on the motor, for such a massive heavy cover the motor is jammed right on the bottom, can see the original scrapes on the inside from the back of the motor.
Quick test and all works, nows the time to sort the inverters and control panel.

This took 3 days to cut... but i want giving up and using things like drills and saws, i was determined to get it cut on the plasma ill update the mpcnc thread with the saga.

Nice new buttons and knobs, cant have too many knobs, can do better though..

switch out plasma setup for engraving setup this time only had 1.5 failures! can see above the spindle speed writing where the panel nearly took off from the table as it was on the final outside cut, got a bit dicey till i literally puled the plug cut the rest out by hand.. but looks pretty good i must say.

mounted the inverters below the cabinet and wired them up to run some test cuts, mostly to see how the motor copes with being stuck in top gear.
Did not too bad 1.5mm cut (3mm dia) @1000 rpm dropped to 900 while making blue swarf, top speed is now 1900 but i can live with that, can maybe play with running it at 60hz if i want the full 2000?
Over all a lot smoother, still a lot of gear noise but is quieter than when it was shaking itself to bits!

Still to wire the pump inverter, dont really need it but have a spare seeing as i dont need to drive the speed control motor.

Also i bought a small control box to mount to the other end of the lathe, so i have a start, stop and emergency stop where i dont have to lean over the business end when things get caught up and spinning. One of the many things i miss from the colchester is apron mounted start stop, and a full length foot operated emergency stop and brake

 

[chrisg3103]

Lathe going fine in its current setup, managed to turn out another stub axle for the digger and cutting the thread is much easier with the jog buttons! have the jog stop to braked so spindle stops dead as soon as you release the button.
Except i ballsed up on the final cut of the shaft.. the cross slide dial is calibrated to radius/ direct reading, which i find a complete pain in the proverbial, having to work out what i need to cut then divide it by 2 then try and split a single graduation on the dial! each graduation is 0.02mm so to take 0.1mm off of the overall diameter i need to try and quarter a graduation anyway, mind elsewhere, needed a 0.05mm skim, dialed in 0.05mm on the dial, 25mm shaft now 24.95mm

There was a thread on here about how great DRO's were and i had a quick look at the time, after that fubar i had another look, and bought the cheapest setup i could find £140 delivered for a 2 axis setup with 5 micron scales? worth a shot!

So most of it arrived the other day, for some reason the 600mm scale just arrived 10 min ago,
So this is the cross slide scale, ordered 200mm, probably should of went 150

Could of possibly put it on the chuck side but it looked very vulnerable there, fits not bad on the tailstock side but it partially blocks one oiler and the carriage lock screw, and its a bit long but these things can be sorted. Biggest disadvantage of this is im loosing a chunk of space the tailstock used to be able to slide into.

First job was to remove the cross slide and take the scale apart, i was going to have a go at chopping the scale to size i would of been more hesitant if this actually cost any great amount of money, but the scale was about £35, if it exploded its not irreplaceable.

Took the end cap off the scale and slid out the reader head, not much to it, seems to be 4 diodes and 4 detectors and runs along the glass scale with those little rollers. Put it un a bag out of the way.

next was the most nerve wracking part and i dont have a load of pictures as i didnt know if it would work, cutting the glass scale without it shattering.
There is a bit of leeway in the chopping, the head dosnt start reading till a few cm into the scale anyway, so the end of the scale dosnt have to be a perfect cut. I first did a test cut with an angle grinder through the whole lot (i know your not supposed to grind aluminium) and it split the scale pretty evenly when it reached it, so i then went for the actual cut, went ok but too wonky.
So i then got the rage 3 out to square up the end and went very slowly, it cut the scale but more of a chipping action as you can imagine.

But it worked!

Here is a bit of glass scale, the black line is a mask i think and the grey bit it the actual grating.

This is it under my USB microscope thingy if anyone's interested, this is the 5 micron, would be barely able to see the 1 micron scales.

Filled a grove into the end cap so i didnt have to nibble away at the glass any more than i had to and went to drill and tap new mounting holes in the scale body, when i ran into a problem, the screws are not M3. Went to Tower tools to get some taps, forgot to take a screw to identify it, picked up M2 taps as he didnt have M2.5. Guess what size they are! but i didnt want to wait for delivery and oversized it to M3, i really wouldn't recommend this, good reason there is no picture, not enough meat to do this and make it look nice but it worked.
Also its impossible to keep muck off of the glass, but i gave it all a good gentle clean before final assembly, took the other end cap off and give it a blow out with low pressure air, then rinse any muck out with electrical contact cleaner spray. try not to touch the glass.

So custom sized scale mounted to the cross slide, reader head on a simple plate mounted to the saddle so the head stays still and the scale moves, no overhangs.

Little notch if i need to lock the carriage, but only if i wind the cross slide to that position

And a little notch to get the oil can nozzle in

Also still have access to the gib strip screws

 

[chrisg3103]

Generic cover that is supplied fits perfectly into the casting on the saddle

Not sure if ill use it though as im loosing more precocious mm's from the tailstocks travel

Finally plugged it all in to see if it still worked after all my chopping, very impressed! and it has diameter mode!!
Now going to try fit the big scale, guessing the worst one is over with?

 

[addjunkie]

Dro is money well spent you wont regret it. That looks good value!

 

[chrisg3103]

600mm scale was much more straight forward to fit, could of went smaller in the end, seems to be about 400mm of travel.

reader head attached with the two aluminium plates that came with the two scales, plenty of adjustment.

Modifies the supplied cover to try and minimize swarf getting under it, time will tell if it works

And finally back in position, attached display to the backsplash but not sure if it will work in operation, might be a bit bouncy. Apart from that it seems a good place, just a bit of cable management to sort came together a lot better than i thought it would.
As a side note the DRO is mains powered, but i took the back off and its actually 5v, possible option to use the low voltage supply from the inverter to power the DRO and free up a socket but i need to stop over complicating things...
Yet to test it in anger but think im already a DRO convert, handy for the lathe but looks invaluable for a milling machine!

 

[addjunkie]

Mount the dro read out on the wall.....no vibration. Id move it towards the chuck, as thats here most of the work and your eyes will be.

 

[jenki]

Thank you for that write up chrisg3103 very interesting article and a nice result on the lathe.

 

[chrisg3103]

Mount the dro read out on the wall.....no vibration. Id move it towards the chuck, as thats here most of the work and your eyes will be.

Is a thought, but this isn't going to be a long term machine, it's a more portable one I can shift about when I eventually plan on rebuilding the garage and can get my big machines in. Only weighs about 400kg, so ideally keep everything on the machine.
Moved the display about till it felt sort of right, I stand to the right of the carriage, even with the guard down I try not stand with the chuck in line with any bit of me

Thank you for that write up chrisg3103 very interesting article and a nice result on the lathe.

Cheers, I like to try write up what I can, found forums invaluable for information like this and it's always annoying when someone is working on the same issue as you, and then the thread goes dark!