Lathe suggestions?

[routercnc]

Well I visited the Warco open day last weekend and finally ordered a lathe !

I had narrowed my choices down to the WM250 (£1195) and the WM250 with invertor (£1475). I started asking a few questions and asked about the special offer on their website for one of the lathes (free extra goodies which I wanted to buy anyway). Turns out that the offer would apply to any of the lathes above, plus they would offer a show discount.

So I asked for them to be run up. The WM250 has a DC motor with variable speed control and gave a constant hum all the time which although not loud could get annoying. However the WM250 invertor had a VFD control and sounded much nicer straight away. I also asked if the invertor had terminals to allow separate control of speed, direction etc. (thinking of a future CNC conversion) and the salesman paused as I don't think he'd been asked that before. The lathes were tight against the wall so we couldn't see round the back to check.

I asked to price up the WM250 invertor lathe including the offer and discount and I got the follow list:
Lathe (with all the usual bits - 3 jaw, 4-jaw, faceplate, travelling and fixed steadies etc.) (£1475)
Live centre, set of 9off 12mm indexable tools, tailstock chuck (£113) (these were the 'free offer' bits)
DRO 2 axis read out with 500mm and 100mm scale (£280)
Nice parting off tool with insert (£33)
QCTP including small modification to make it fit (£140)

This would have been £2041, but the offer total was £1648 ! Well that was an easy one. So now I have the WM250 invertor model on order with all the above bits. This comes with the power cross feed as well, although it still only has the single main feed screw on the saddle. As I plan to CNC convert it with ballscrews at some point neither of these things matter but I suspect that will be some time away.

So I've cleared one of the benches, just need to wait for the order to arrive now (some items on back order). Meanwhile, here is the stock photo: