care and cleaning of lathe motor

Re: care and cleaning of lathe motor

Earl

>Can't say I've had the same experience as I have only been turning a year. But I used to own a print shop and the motors and vacuum pumps were constantly subjected to paper dust. Finer than wood chips, but about the same for wood dust. We had to completely clean the pumps at least once a year and the motors every few years. The first time it happend, like you, I thought the motor was shot, but it was just dirty.

Unless you completely enclosed the motor in another case and then put some kind of filter on it where fresh air would have to come in, doubt that there is too much you can do about it. When you consider how that dust will get through any opening bigger than 1 or 2 microns!

Earl

Re: care and cleaning of lathe motor

John Lucas

>Roly

Haven't had that happen yet but worry about it. I blow out the motor with my compressor about every other night when I'm cleaning the shop. I also blow out the lamps over the lathe because they collect an awful lot of debris. I worry about a fire. John

Re: care and cleaning of lathe motor

Don Henthorn Smithville, Texas

>Again referring to the coversion of my little Jet, the new motor is mounted outside the lathe and not underneath. It is an open motor with no built in protection. It is mounted in a box with a fairly large computer type fan on the far end of the box. The air enters the fan, flows through the box and exits at the pulleys and belt end. The positive pressure created prevents sawdust from entering the box from the turning end and the filtered fan is far enough from the dust source that it doesn't pick up any dust. The motor is staying as clean as I could wish. Probably something similar could be rigged up for some other tuypes of lathes.

Re: care and cleaning of lathe motor

Tom In Red Deer

>Hi Roly,

I have the same problem with all three of my lathes. I sometimes turn stone as well and that is really dusty.

To solve the problem I took some foam rubber and put it over the intake end of the motor. I just used some tie wraps to secure it.

It is a fairly open cell foam so it lets the air through.

After six months, no problems.

I also use the air hose to blow the dust out. I do that on all the machines once a week.

It ain't perfect but it helps,

Tom in Red Deer

Re: care and cleaning of lathe motor

Peter Teubel

>"Has anyone had this same problem, and is there any way to prevent this stuff from entering the inside of this electric monster?"

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TEFC. No dust ever enters the internals.