With little else to do tonight, I thought I'd get the new backplate on, and machine it up for the ER collet chuck I've had lying around for a while.
Expecting the 3jaw to be seized on, I was surprised that it came of with gentle use of some mole grips (because Conect removed the original pulley block, there's no spanner flats on the headstock) and a lever, it slackened with no need to resort to expletives.

Spun the new backplate on, nipped it up, then hit the first problem.
The carriage wouldn't move near enough to the headstock for the tool to reach the backplate. After much umming and r'ing, going through the tool collection, thinking it was the ball screw cover at the headstock end bottoming out, which would involve a lot of dismantling to remove, it finally dawned on me the problem was the ballscrew cover at the tailstock end, so with one screw removed, I had the required travel.

So onto getting some G-code to face the backplate. Loaded the wizards in Mach, and first attempt cutting air done the wrong thing, so while putting some more figures into the wizard, I'm aware of a crackling sound, the lights briefly dim, then a pop, followed by the dreaded smell.

Turns out the toiroid has melted itself, but there's no obvious reason why.
The fibre washer on the mounting bolt looks to be where it should of been, so that's not caused it, but it has been heating for a while going by the melted tape and how hot it still was by the time I pulled the lathe out and unscrewed the back cover.
There is a arcing mark on the base, so I wonder if a bit swarf has worked it's way in somewhere causing the problems :confused:
Anyway, here's a couple photos of the culprit
Attachment 4593Attachment 4594

I've already had a search for a direct replacement, but dual voltage toiroids seem to be pretty rare, as this had a 12V and a 24V secondary.
Think this may be a suitable time to up the voltage aswell, as those geckos are good for 50V, and the basic motor calcs say they should handle the voltage....:naughty: