Motor Vibration

How do most lathe manufacturers and or individuals work with minimizing motor vibrations ?
I have to adjust the motor so that the
belt is pretty loose ..
What I did was watch and feel the vibrations
as I adjusted the motor and minimized the
vibration ..
What does everyone one else do ?
I was also told by Smithy there was a
V-belt that has links in it .. but I forgot what they said it was called ..
Not sure where to get one either ..
any ideas ?
Oh .. and are all gearhead lathes noisy
in the gear box ?? Maybe its how the lathe
says " Made in China" LOL

G'day Lanmanb4,
I've have spent ten years trying to make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear" i.e. make a cheap chinese lathe behave the way you would like. It's a great learning experience, and it runs a lot better than it did new, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Good quality one piece belts help, linked belts only increase vibration. Pullys should be aligned, and if possible balanced. The motor itself can be a problem if it isn't well balanced, or has poor bearings as can any idler pulleys. This is especially true if they are hanging off the bed of the machine. Re-mounting the motor away from the bed helps a lot.
I still have mine, it has too much of my sweat to sell at second hand chinese tool prices; but I have just purchased a near mint English "Colchester Master 2500" (13"x40") even if it is 10 years too late.

Good luck,
Paul

Ask over on the General side, this was talked about some time ago. All I rember is snigle phase will cause more than 3 phase, and VFD is the best way to reduce it.

Gears are noisy

The best one can do is reduce the gear noise.

In a well bult gear head lathe, all the shaft bores are held to very close limits of center to center spacing.

All the gears are hardened so they don't wear rapidly and then they are subsequently finished by either grinding or shaving.

The tooth profile is accurate. The pitch diameter is not only accurately to size, but is held almost unbelivebly concentric to its center of rotation.

Even with all this craftsmanship, I can still hear the gear noise in a Pratt & Whitney or a Gear Head Monarch.

Cheap Gear Head Lathes?

Gonna Be Noisy.

I like the South Bend Lathe if I am going to buy an inexpensive machine.

Only the Back Gears are noisy,the machine runs smoothly in the open belt speeds.

The countershaft with its big "V" belt pully and the cone pully have enough mass to smooth out a god bit of single phase motor vibration.

The mass of the headstock pully and the Bull Gear plus the frictional drag of the oil in the plain bearings get rid of almost all the rest of it.

If you want to take a fine, hand feed cut, put the end gears in neutral and the lathe is smooth and silent.

: )