Shesto cadet lathe

[colin beightonParticipant @colinbeighton45883]

Also known as a Connect 123 lathe.?

I rescued one recently and have it polished to a nice sparkle. Now I need two bits of (simple) electrical information. Can anyone help?

[colin beightonParticipant @colinbeighton45883]

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Is that a CNC unit

 

Like the Denfords?

[colin beightonParticipant @colinbeighton45883]

Hello Ady 1. If you are thinking of the Denford ORAC then the answer is no. This is a smaller lathe with a round bar for the bed.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

What do you want to know?

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

Everything I look at tells me that this is a CNC machine was it you that posted for help on the CNC forum

 

As blowlamp says what do you want to know

[colin beightonParticipant @colinbeighton45883]

Good morning blowlamp.

1. The big driving motor for the spindle is supplied from it’s own circuit board which has terminals for armature and field etc. How is the speed varied? Do you feed a digital or analogue signal into some of the other terminals? Do you need to have the tacho connected also?

2.The two stepper motors are made in Italy (MAE Offanengo) and have 4 pairs of wires. The wires of 2 of the pairs are joined together. How do the wires connect to the coils inside the motor?

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Hi Colin,

I will start by asking Ady1’s question again. Is this a CNC lathe ?

If you trace out the schematic of the main motor control board I should be able to work out how the speed is controlled and if it needs speed feedback and in what form.

You should be able to identify the connections to the stepper motors using a multimeter.

This webpage will help you to identify the type of winding on the stepper motor.

 

Les.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I have a lot of old cnc piccies, obsolete denfords and emcos, but none of mine ride on circular ways

 

Is there a tailstock and is it on circular ways?

 

Would be interesting to see a piccy

 

The Emco compact 3 is the closest I can find

 

[colin beightonParticipant @colinbeighton45883]

HI all,thanks for your interest. I’ll tell you what I know about this lathe,or rather what I think. I may have got it all wrong.

The bed is a bar diameter 1.5 inches which protrudes 19 ins. from the headstock. The carriage and tailstock both ride on this.

It started life as a Connect 123 or 121, possibly in USA. They were bought in by Shesto engineering who did some work on them and rebadged them as the Shesto Cadet. They were CNC lathes. The original software ran on the old BBC Micro computer but was specific to this and does not transfer easily to modern computers. Also the motor drivers run in the old resistance limited mode. So I would plan to scrap all that, keep the motors and get new drivers and software. I expect that would mean a new driver board for the spindle motor as well.

There is not much information about them on the net and the little there is, is from way back. Perhaps they did not sell well?

Thank you Les for that link. It should keep me out of mischief for some time!

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

The Conect [ one L ] range of CNC machines were UK based.

They were started in Long Eaton, Derbyshire by two guys, one I have forgotten his name and the second was Alan Timmins the clock guy.

 

They started off with a lathe based on the ML10, moved onto a mill based on the Rishton and then sold the company. At some point it was based in Ireland and routers had been added to the range.

 

Also at some point in their life Conqueror Engineering who are still in business supplied hardware for these machines.

 

Conqueror Engineering

 

John S.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Is this it?

 

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/vertical_mill_lathe_project_log/23855-conect_cnc_lathe_retrofit.html

 

 

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

The that’s the one based on the ML10 lathe.

 

John S.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

If there are software related issues it might be worthwhile asking on the Yahoo sites

 

BBC basic, DOS etc there’s quite a few retro language places around

[colin beightonParticipant @colinbeighton45883]

Good morning each. Thank you John S. for setting the record straight. I guess Alan Timming’s involvement explains the watchmaker style round bed.

Re the software problem,your links give a lot of new information and open new possibilities. Very interesting!

Thanks everyone for your helpful input. Best wishes to all. Colin.

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