warco lathes.

[ChrisBParticipant @chrisb35596]

Probably I was the last person to post having a problem with wiring in a Warco lathe, and the reason I did post was not to complain about or bad mouth Warco, I just wanted help to solve the problem, which I did thanks to some very helpful folk on here.

That said, I honestly was not expecting the lathe to be faulty straight out of the box, I made it very clear to Warco that the lathe was for export and wanted to be sure it was fully tested before dispatch as obviously they won't be able to fix it from 2000miles away. Was told that it was standard procedure from their side to do thorough checks on export machines so I was confident. Not that I'm dissatisfied or anything like that, just to be clear, but it does dent a bit my impression of the product…

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Well chaps, all a bit of a mix up and JS comment wasn't directed at me, we've cleared things up offline so enough said. Let's leave it at that

[LathejackParticipant @lathejack]

Posted by Graeme W on 07/05/2017 21:02:17:

Well chaps, all a bit of a mix up and JS comment wasn't directed at me, we've cleared things up offline so enough said. Let's leave it at that

But it was directed at someone wasn't it? I think your response in your previous post may still be valid, at least on someone else's behalf.

Edited By Lathejack on 07/05/2017 21:12:56

Edited By Lathejack on 07/05/2017 21:13:26

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

So the question is who was it directed at ?

regardless it was a very offensive post especially when the poster was a moderator

the post was certainly not moderate

Edited By Antony Powell on 08/05/2017 06:58:55

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by ChrisB on 07/05/2017 21:01:58:

That said, I honestly was not expecting the lathe to be faulty straight out of the box, I made it very clear to Warco that the lathe was for export and wanted to be sure it was fully tested before dispatch as obviously they won't be able to fix it from 2000miles away. Was told that it was standard procedure from their side to do thorough checks on export machines so I was confident. Not that I'm dissatisfied or anything like that, just to be clear, but it does dent a bit my impression of the product…

As the machines would have gone through several other couriers/transport companies you will never know how they were handled (nornally delivered by Warcos own transport) quite possible it worked OK in Warco's warehouse and the wire that was not in very tight worked its way out during the journey.

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

It’s a common problem these days, everything is thrown together as fast as possible and as long as it passes basic testing out it goes.
Long gone are the days of pride in your work and the bigger the company the worse it gets…..profit for shareholders rules!!

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Posted by Antony Powell on 27/04/2017 18:51:30:

My best option at the moment is the Runmaster 330 from Axminster Tools at £4163.33 + vat single phase or £4374.97 + vat. three phase single phase is 8 speed, three phase is 16 speed.

Its also the only one to offer a full three year on site parts and labour warranty, others are all 12 months, except Warco who are 6+6 full / parts only

down side is 21 day wait for three phase or 42 day wait for single phase and they are both end of line limited availability.

Decisions Decisions ……

Tony

Edited By Antony Powell on 27/04/2017 18:53:03

Tony,

I have a personal interest in the Runmaster story. Could you please explain "down side is 21 day wait for three phase or 42 day wait for single phase and they are both end of line limited availability."

– Why is there a 21/42 days wait?… are they awaiting stock or are these electrical mods which they are doing in-house?

– End of line limited availability?…. does it means that they will stop supply after current stocks are exhausted?

I am just curious.

thanks, Ketan.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

On the other hand anyone buying a far eastern lathe is doing so due to the attractive price, and would have to be a bit thick to expect the quality of say a Hardinge for the price. All these machines are made to a price point and if that means not spending time lacing the wiring then that is what you get for your money.

Anthony, you have said elsewhere that you can't afford to go with say a new harrison and went for a cheaper Warco do youthink you would be getting a machine of the same build quality?

Myself I would rather have a lathe with a bit of untidy wiring than no lathe at all due to comprable sized machines costing more than I want to spend.

J

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by JasonB on 08/05/2017 10:06:55:

On the other hand anyone buying a far eastern lathe is doing so due to the attractive price, and would have to be a bit thick to expect the quality of say a Hardinge for the price. All these machines are made to a price point and if that means not spending time lacing the wiring then that is what you get for your money.

Anthony, you have said elsewhere that you can't afford to go with say a new harrison and went for a cheaper Warco do youthink you would be getting a machine of the same build quality?

Myself I would rather have a lathe with a bit of untidy wiring than no lathe at all due to comprable sized machines costing more than I want to spend.

J

Jason

I doubt that many people expect Hardinge performance when buying a cheaper lathe, there might be a few that look at the far eastern machine specification with rose tinted spectacles but its not fair to describe them as 'thick'.

'Not spending time' lacing is not the problem, what is more important is electrical safety and supplying a product suitable for the purpose as the thread started by ChrisB recently shows. If the fault on his machine was caused by a wire coming loose, then the consequences of the loose wire would have been a lot worse if it was a safety ground wire.

Ian P

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Ian Phillips on 08/05/2017 10:41:33:

Posted by JasonB on 08/05/2017 10:06:55:

On the other hand anyone buying a far eastern lathe is doing so due to the attractive price, and would have to be a bit thick to expect the quality of say a Hardinge for the price. All these machines are made to a price point and if that means not spending time lacing the wiring then that is what you get for your money.

Anthony, you have said elsewhere that you can't afford to go with say a new harrison and went for a cheaper Warco do youthink you would be getting a machine of the same build quality?

Myself I would rather have a lathe with a bit of untidy wiring than no lathe at all due to comprable sized machines costing more than I want to spend.

J

Jason

…

'Not spending time' lacing is not the problem, what is more important is electrical safety and supplying a product suitable for the purpose as the thread started by ChrisB recently shows. If the fault on his machine was caused by a wire coming loose, then the consequences of the loose wire would have been a lot worse if it was a safety ground wire.

Ian P

 

Ian,

I fear you're leaping ahead of the evidence such that it is.

The actual problem with ChrisB's lathe was that a 5V control wire came adrift from the contactor. The effect was that the motor would not run in forward, ie it failed safe.

With one exception, I've never seen a complaint that one of these lathes became dangerous through faulty wiring. I'd suggest that's because the earth wiring is both simpler and connections are solidly bolted to the lathe itself. Most of the complaints on the web about Far Eastern lathes are that they 'stopped working', for a variety of causes, some related to cost-cutting and poor workmanship, but not all.

The only safety exception I'm aware of might be Antony's lathe where an earth wire melted. I would dearly like to see a professional analysis of the root cause of his damage. It appears that an earth wire melted, but there was no damage to the live wire. Antony didn't see the damage occur, and the fuse remained intact. That unusual combination suggests that the lathe was damaged by something else, not by an internal fault. If that's right then any other lathe would have suffered exactly the same damage. We don't know though.

Before retiring, 'expectation management' took up a fair amount of my working day. Briefly, this consisted of explaining that 'quality' was off the agenda, and that the name of the game was defining what the business meant by 'fit-for-purpose' and 'value for money'. This was difficult because the accountants wanted cheap whilst end-users wanted gold-plated brand-names irrespective of cost. The same tension is true of buying a home lathe. Basically we have 3 options:

• justify buying a new professional lathe, it will be good, probably overkill, and will be very expensive; You get what you pay for.
• buy a second-hand professional lathe, here the risk lies in the 'second-hand' part, it could be anything between a bargain and a dangerous money-pit, for example the wiring might be completely shot due to old age.
• buy a new hobby lathe, it will be a third of the price and there will be limitations. You pay for what you get. The main protection is that it can be sent back if it goes horribly wrong.

I wonder how many hobby lathe owners would be prepared to pay to have their wiring beautified? It might be a wonderful business opportunity. Or perhaps there's no demand at all. I had a good look at mine, it ain't pretty, but it's certainly not dangerous.

Cheers,

Dave

Edit. Why do mistakes only appear AFTER hitting Save?

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 08/05/2017 12:15:18

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Dave

The only evidence I have is what I saw in the pictures and reading that a wire came loose. The untidiness of the wiring is of no concern to me (other than indicating a poorly finished product).

Fortunately the wire that came loose was in the low voltage wiring and it self-indicated itself by stopping the machine working. The loose wire could just as well been carrying mains, when it might have stopped the machine running (a good thing), however it could equally well been a safety ground wire, the machine would still work and the user might operate the machine for years without knowing of a potential problem.

Its not stretching imagination to suggest that if one wire can come loose so could another. If that second wire brought mains voltage into contact with the metalwork a potentially dangerous situation (even fatal) would have existed.

Accidents rarely happen because of only one thing going wrong, usually there is combination of factors that conspire or coincide. I admit two wires detaching as I have suggested is an unlikely event, but 'unlikely' means that the possibility still exists.

Unless regulations have changed I recall that it is mandatory for detachable metal panels to be earth bonded with a wire and not rely on the panel making contact with, say, a painted surface. The panel on ChrisB's lateh does not appear to have a bonding wire so for that reason alone I would consider the wiring substandard.

The wiring would not stop me from buying a Warco product but I would certainly be checking it carefully before I used it.

I agree with you about Anthony's lathe but personally would need to know a lot more about the cause to diagnose what actually went wrong.

Ian P

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

I too would like my engineering curiosity answered re Anthony’s lathe – the reported intact fuse in live wire, no smoke at time of intended use, melted wire that should easily have sunk the fused 13A just don’t add up to a local fault – my guess is that something was (maybe still is?) wrong between feed from supply company possibly via a local site transformer as used in long rural drops + probable local PMEs leading to lathe being the preferred path for the neutral current from the other ring main or major imbalance in other 3 phase supply in what seems like a relatively large workshop/garage. Maybe monitoring the N-E voltage at the socket feeding the lathe whilst other rings etc are in use might avoid a repeat?

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

I don't have any opinion about the wiring issue that's taken up so many column inches lately, but I think that the general truth about Warco machines is that they are at least adequate for most work within their size range.

I've recently posted about an issue I had where a shearpin fell out of its location without good reason and caused an alarming jam – which, however, turned out to be resolvable without additional damage or expense.

I've had the WM250V for a bit over 2 years and it's been in almost daily use for an extensive range of turning jobs from delrin to silver steel, and a lot of milling and flycutting using a Myford vertical slide with an adapted Warco baseplate. Previously I used a Myford Speed 10 for 15 years. In the 1970s I spent about 4 years as a turner using a wide range of lathes including some big Binns & Berrys, and I also work as a volunteer making components for a steam railway workshop using their machinery for work that's too big for my own.

The Warco isn't as cosmetically attractive as the Myford was, but that's the only negative comment I'll make. The 3 jaw chuck that came with it still runs true to a thou TIR on silver steel ground stock, and I've seen it run within about 6 tenths. It's not as good on outside or reverse jaws, but I bought a set of soft jaws that stops that being much of a problem.

There has never been any sort of electrical problem.

It can take 80 thou cuts on silver steel, which the Myford never could. The milling setup with vertical slide is far steadier because the bed's much wider, and the fine powered crossfeed gives a silky finish when facing, flycut-milling flats or slot-drilling.

When components like changewheel bushes and tee-nuts got damaged during the guarantee period, Warco replaced them promptly and without question. When I raised the problem I reported on these forums they responded courteously to voicemails and emails within a reasonable period, although by that time I'd found and fixed the issue – which would have been difficult for them to diagnose anyway.

Like many machines, they contain traps for the unwary – chiefly concerning driving powered feeds beyond limits of travel – but very few commercial machines are foolproof, and all kinds of engineering usually punish foolishness anyway.

Although they're quite severely value-engineered, I think they're decent working machines fairly supported by the company.

Edited By Mick Burmeister 1 on 08/05/2017 16:39:44

[Stuart BridgerParticipant @stuartbridger82290]

Just a general observation, threads like this only show what goes wrong, so show a very negative view of the world. For every one that has an issue with a Warco lathe there will be x times a silent majority who have no issues. I work in IT support for a storage vendor (one who has very high reputation for support). On some very busy days, some of my colleagues can get very down. I respond by saying that we see the raw end of the job, in that we only speak to customers with problems
1) For every customer that has an issue, there are x thousand that don't and are very happy
2) Even if a customer has an issue (Sh8t happens), it is the quality of support that gets the issue resolved that counts.

BTW I have a Warco VMC mill, I had a minor issue within warranty and it was sorted very effectively

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

Hi ketan
The wait is down to anticipated delivery dates from devon to yorkshire. The longer wait for single phase is due to minor store damage that they are awaiting the parts for to be able to repair it.

Single phase is last one.
There are 5 three phase left.
No more after stock gone as i understand it.

Hi jasonb
At the time of purchasing the warco i was unaware of the harrison . As i said i based my purchasing choice upon my old BH600 lathes quality.

If i wanted to i could have a new harrison but have set my budget at around the ?5000 mark

I wrongly anticipated similar quality to my old lathe.if you read my earlier posts you will also see that this was warcos third attempt on this particular model.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Antony Powell on 08/05/2017 19:29:06:

If i wanted to i could have a new harrison but have set my budget at around the ?5000 mark
 

.

Have you spoken to this guy. http://www.alphamachinetools.co.uk/lathes.php Like I suggested previously.?

Nick

Edited By Nick_G on 08/05/2017 19:40:00

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

Hi nick
Not had chance yet should do later this week
Thanks

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

Various Colchester Student 1800s, Chipmaster, Triumph 2000 + Harrison M300s at this auction, ending this week **LINK**

Nigel B

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Posted by Antony Powell on 08/05/2017 19:29:06:
Hi ketan
The wait is down to anticipated delivery dates from devon to yorkshire. The longer wait for single phase is due to minor store damage that they are awaiting the parts for to be able to repair it.

Single phase is last one.
There are 5 three phase left.
No more after stock gone as i understand it.

Ah okay, thanks for clarifying.

Ketan.

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

Hi Nigel

Interesting link & not just for the lathes !!

thanks

[Richard PennyParticipant @richardpenny19093]

Does anybody have any experience of changing the main motor on a WMT500 ? It looks to me that I will need to remove the housing which covers the pulleys and gearbox which would be a nuisance if there is room to unbolt the motor

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

hi have just bought a warco 1322 lathe and am finding it awkward to use, then I realized it was left hand, all warco lathes seem to be this way, does any one else have problems having the carriage hand wheel on the left?

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Posted by roy williams 3 on 06/03/2020 19:06:47:

hi have just bought a warco 1322 lathe and am finding it awkward to use, then I realized it was left hand, all warco lathes seem to be this way, does any one else have problems having the carriage hand wheel on the left?

I've a 1330 which also has the handwheel on the left

It's loosely based on the design of the Harrison M300, with one stage of the gearbox removed and instead supplied with changewheels.

On the Harrison by default, on gap beds, the handwheel was on the left, and on plain beds it was on the right; I think either could be specified by special order.
It may not make it any easier to use from your point of view, and it does expose ones hand more readily to hot metal chips, but it does at least explain it for you.

Bill

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Biggest market for the far eastern lathes is the US where left hand is the norm so not economical to alter for the smaller UK market.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Smart & Brown Model M mark 2 is left hand carriage handwheel.

Martin C

[Author]

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