Moveable Control for General 26020 Lathe

I have a General 26020, circa 2000, that I'm very satisfied with, but I had always wished it had a remote—a way of positioning the On/Off switch and speed control wherever I wanted it, so I wouldn't always have to reach to the front of the machine (a little inconvenient when hollowing, especially if you're straddling the bed). Not long ago, I had a chance to use a new version of this machine and it had just that—the controls were in a box tethered to the electronics by a cable. I inquired about getting one of these from General and adding it to my lathe—I got a quote of a couple hundred bucks and dire warnings about the complexities of hooking it up. But in looking the thing over, I realized that there's nothing more to this than just

1. unscrewing the metal plate that holds the switch and speed control
2. mounting the plate on a box
3. hooking everything back up—via a long cable—to the same place in the electronics as it was originally

It worked great. I needed six feet (about $20 worth) of six-conductor (stranded #20 wires) shielded cable, a scrap of wood (apple, in case you're wondering), and a couple rare earth magnets. Plus a scrap piece of 1⁄16" steel plate to cover the hole in the machine where the controls used to mount. Now I can have the controls within easy reach no matter what I'm doing—on the bed, on the side of the machine near the tailstock, or anywhere else.

Here is a photo showing the box stuck on the headstock with its original location just below it.

And there's nothing complicated about this electrically, everything is connected exactly as it was at the factory. No more, no less. It's just six feet of cable outside the machine instead of two feet of cable inside the machine. I would think this approach would work on some other lathes. I'm embarrassed that it took me five years to think of it. Duh.

Bill Howatt adds: Be very careful if you plan on moving the On/Off pushbuttons as well. They have the full 240V line voltage on them (at least my three year old 26020VFD has) not the 24V control voltage.

I did my On/Off, as well as the speed control pot. I didn't bother with the reversing switch. I built a secondary box which mounts near the VFD controller enclosure for switching the 240V and just used 12V for the On/Off switches which I moved. Also, having the On/Off near the speed pot helps you see what the pot is set at before turning the lathe on—just in case you put a new rough blank on and the pot is turned to max speed.

When I tried to remove the speed pot from the General panel I couldn't figure out how to get the knob mechanism off so I bought a new pot.