Monarch 10EE Variable Reverse and Variable Braking

[tailstock4]

I’m think of adding these two options to my VFD converted lathe. This is the lathe and conversion that I discussed in my “My VFD Conversion and a Question” post.
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/monarch-lathes/my-10ee-vfd-conversion-question-381588-post3616015/#post3616015

I’m thinking about adding a switch and potentiometer for reverse speed and a potentiometer for braking control. These two options would make using the “ELSR” when threading quicker, and the braking would just be nice to have.

Joe at D.P. Brown informed me this would be possible with some coding and software changes. He also recommended the possibility of going to a small touchscreen (7” x 7”), there by not limiting me to the two analog inputs that are left open on the drive.

Anybody done this? Opinions, ideas or thoughts? There doesn’t seem to be much info on how Monarch had this set up. Did they have this set up where the second potentiometer was always activated in reverse or just set up as an option to engage. I assume it was only used with the ELSR. Anyone know how it operated?

 

[rke[pler]

It shouldn't be too hard to have a separate pot controlling reverse speed as long as the switch you're using has a separate set of contacts so you can switch speed pots when you're switching from forward to reverse.

Variable braking might be harder as that's an internal parameter that you're setting (deceleration rate). Not sure that there's an easy way to change this w/o getting into the parameters dynamically.

 

[tailstock4]

It shouldn't be too hard to have a separate pot controlling reverse speed as long as the switch you're using has a separate set of contacts so you can switch speed pots when you're switching from forward to reverse.

Variable braking might be harder as that's an internal parameter that you're setting (deceleration rate). Not sure that there's an easy way to change this w/o getting into the parameters dynamically.

Thanks for your response. This post was a bit of a shot in the dark. I was just curious to see if anyone had done it. I do believe the variable reverse would not be too difficult, but I was curious to find out if anyone who is actually running this option has found it useful.

As for variable braking, that was a conversation I had with one of D.P. Brown’s engineers. He seemed to think that it might be doable, but we didn’t get into any details or what that might entail. The limitation on this isn’t them; it’s me. We’ll see.