Ok, another amateur may have gotten taken. But its what I have now.

Here are my questions.

I purchased a 14" logan powermatic lathe from a guy in largo florida (he professed to be an expert). Now I know he was joking. Anyway.

the speed controller on the unit does not work. based on my reading it states that the speed controling handwheel will not work if the belts are too tight. Well these belts look brand new but are really really tight.

I have contacted a company and they priced these two belts at 250 for the pair (approximately) Ouch. I am sure they are worth that amount but I simply don't have that to spend right now.

Does anyone know what size the belts are supposed to be and a alternate place to get them.

My lathe is being used for hobby stuff only.

I have found that the the VS pulleys on the 12"& 14" need to be taken a part and cleaned. Logan states in there manuals not to take then a part but I have fixed a number of then. there 4 mane parts to the pulley system the axle, 2 outer pulleys and the center pulley. things I have found wrong are the oil has turned to a hard grease and the inner pulley wont move in the outer pulleys . the outer pulley bores are worn the fix is to bush them they also need a grove for a oil seal . the inner pulley is bushed on the id just install new bushing and make a new axle but hubs ware fix is to turn the hubs to mach the new bushing in the outer pulleys. The last 14" pulley assy I fixed only oiled half the assy. its been a year or two sends I last did one. Where did look for the belts if you went to DC Morrison that is why there 250 a set try Logan at www.lathe.com you should be able to get the belts from any good bearing house

I gutted the whole mechanical VS assembly on my Logan 14" and went with a VFD. Highly recommended.

Regards.

Finegrain

coyotebegone;

I have one of these, the vari-speed is pretty simple, so you need to do some debugging.

When you say the speed control does not work, does that imply you are stuck at one speed, or is the spindle/motor not turning at all?

Is the speed control knob turning the gearing that it is connected to?

Note; You can only change speed if the spindle is moving.

You can detension the belt(s) by loosening up the nut that controls the motor mount plate.

If the above are obvious, and you have already done them, I apologize, but I think more detail is need for the forum to help you get past this.

regards,

Jon P.

the knob does attempt to turn but only moves about 5 degrees total and the adjoining speed indicator does the same. It appears that either the handle or the shaft that it is attatched to is bent.

Could you give me an idea the cost of a vfd. do I need to change motors toos?

Coyote. The mechanical variable speed control system on that lathe probably just needs some adjustment. As Jpevner said, the motor needs to be driving the mechanism before you can change speeds. If you change over to VFD, you will lose torque at low rpm. I would strongly encourage you to keep and repair the drive system that's in there now. It really is a good system. The parts are not hard to get, and easy to make on the lathe if you can't get them cheap enough. WWQ

Are you running lathe while changing speed?
It should be running.
Jim

It may be that someone didn't realize it needed to be running to change speeds and got a little over excited.

Detensioning and removing the bottom belt from the motor sheave is easy. After that, careful inspection of the control underneath, with particular attention to see if the expanding pulleys are stuck (either not rotating or unable to expand/contract). As one poster mentioned, after a long period of time, they tend to be wedged by ancient grease. Cleaning, making everything move around, etc, and relube will probably fix anything that ails it. wear probably woudn't cause the inability to change speeds. Of course, if something got bent, it will need to be straightened, and without belt tension, the speed adustment control should be able to turn it's geartrain.

It seems kind of early to consider VFD replacement. It's not going to be as good unless you use a sensor based VFD(rare and expensive). Besides, why spend money you probably don't have to?

regards,

Jpevner