Reversing directions?

don't know about your powermatic, but my Oneway could care less, it slows itself and then reverses. Regards Lewis

Teeth grinding, I must ask: "Just how much less can your Oneway care?" Sounds like it cares quite a bit.

ARM

Lewis Dodd wrote: (clip) my Oneway could care less, it slows itself and then reverses. ^^^^^^^^^^^^ So does my Stubby. It *COULDN'T* care less. :-)

How much time are you saving by letting it stop naturally and starting again??? I would think it would cut down on the life of the motor. Ger.

Got me curious, so I fired up the General 260 (nothing on it) and it seemed to just slow down and then turn in the reverse direction. On all of these inverter machines with the microprocessor control I would say you aren't just jamming a different phase sequence onto the motor to reverse it, the microprocessor is going through a programmed sequence to reverse the direction safely. Billh

The Answer is you Must Stop before Reversing if you are to get the Life Out of the Inverter you would expect, certainly all the Inverters I have dealt with both the one for my Lathe and Professionally Make the Warranty Null and Void if Reversal is activated whilst the Motor is in Motion.

I agree with the reply re How Much Time do you Save. Factory set an Inverter will Stop a Motor in 10 seconds or you can re-program it to 5 seconds or any other time if you think this is too long.

With the modern electronics in them these days, I would not be surprised if they had memory space to store the last 50 or so startups for warranty purposes. Cars have them, as do cell phones...

Not unless you want to see the excitement of your faceplate unscrewing and your leaping around the shop trying to catch your bowl before it hits the floor and shatters into hundreds of pieces. Its really exciting. The bowl is still spinning at 1000 rpm; its just not mounted on the lathe anymore. Stop the lathe, then reverse it. Please.

Barry

No wear or tear at all. The inverter circuitry in AC motor controls applies a braking force to slow down the motor (same force as the programmed ramp-down). When it stops, it ramps up in the opposite direction. One would actually SAVE wear & tear on the on/off switch by just using the reverse switch .

Now DC motors/controllers are different (or CAN be different). A friend has a Nova 3000 with a 1.5hp DC motor. He put a safety lock on the reverse switch because if switched from full forward to full reverse, it SLAMS into the other direction. THAT is not good for the motor.

Peter Teubel Milford, MA

Modern AC inverter drives can be programmed for ramp down time/force. Wether you stop the lathe or "slam" it into reverse, the ramp down time/force is the same...until movement stops, then it ramps up in the opposite direction.

Peter Teubel Milford, MA

I've never had one come completely off, but it sure loosened it enough that I had to finally stop the lathe and re-torque the face plate! No saving of time there. Not being a production turner, such thoughts for shortcuts don't really enter my mind. I can well imagine Steve Russell using this method though!! *G* I have to wonder about the wear on the snaplink belt as well?

my lathe simply has a centrifugal switch, so turning it to 'reverse' only turns it OFF, then I have to hit 'start' to get it going again, and it wont start until it has sufficiently slowed to actuate the switch again.