The fun continues. I continued with my "poor man's lathe" project, which has become quite an expensive activity. I made the first major upgrade, changed the stepper to a 180W servo, which required changes in gearing, the pulleys are now 60-20 teeth, so the ratio is 3:1. I also replaced the aluminium extrusion with heavy duty type, added 1605 ball screws and 20mm linear rails on all axes. Of course, the control box also needed to be updated since I can now get 1000 rpm chuck speed.

The change in gearing forced me to replace the belt to a longer one, and I also had to make a new fixture for the motor. I wish I could replace the old fixture with a new one, but I could not find any way of removing the old one, so I added a sort of piggy back plate. Anyone ever removed the motor holder plate, please tell me how to do it without destroying the whole thing. I can not for my life figure it out, and removing the chuck and the large pulley is not enough. Looks like the spindle needs to be dismantled, and I don't want to do it without knowing how.

One thing I am disappointed is the noise. I find the servo is quite noisy. I don't know why, but it is not what I expected. Also, the holding torque seems to be a joke compared with the stepper I had, so maybe this servo is far too weak as a rotational axis, where high holding torque is necessary. Anyway, I will finish the project first, before I buy a more expensive and larger servo.