William, never heard of it before and admittedly not an ideal thing to do but you seem to have checked everything you can and no ill effects so stop worrying !

Although the main bearing oil cups were empty, when there is no load on the spindle it will retain and oil film and if this had broken down assuming your machine has the white metal bearings they would have "run" and you could not miss this. Hot motor – only to be expected but clearly OK – no bad smells.

It really goes to show the longevity built into these machines

John

William,

I think the countershsft bearings will be showing up a lack of lubrication as a result of the prolonged running, other than that the lathe itself has come through with everything operational as it should.

So, a bit of oil where it is needed and away you go again

Regards

Brian

Hi there, William,

I hope that your ML7 has not suffered any irreparable damage.

It sounds as though you need to install a motor starter that incorporates no-volt-release.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Would be interested to know how it was left running for that long. I hope it has no detrimental long term effects.

regards

Not to worry, the national debt increased by approx £360,000,000 over that period of time.

Would some moly benefit the counter shaft bearings?

Not ecstasy but molybdenum disulphide.

NB my question mark as I don't know the composition of ML7 countershaft bearings.

Hi William.

My view would be that 72 hours of 'no load' running on a Myford is not really a problem, especially as you normally keep it well lubricated. The key thing here is that it was 'no load' running. These machines suffer much worse abuse in industry and survive.

Tony Pratt 1 mentioned that the countershaft bearings were phosphor bronze, that is correct but the original fit were sintered bronze bearings (which are porous to retain some of the oil) manufactured by 'Oilite'. A 'trawl' of the internet suggests that these bearings (in imperial sizes) are still available, should they be needed.

Best regards Alan.

William, it sounds that it could be unlikely that this could happen again. Just in case you could feed the lathe through a timer with just the off flag set at the latest time you are likely to need it. the timer will switch it off.

I adopted this for my compressor, I used to switch it on, and if it was not actually running. i would head inside leaving it on. Later in the evening the lights would slightly flicker when it started up again. The problem was solved by the timer.

Chris Gunn

Hi, many years ago, I had a Baby Belling oven with the two hot plates on top. One night when cooking my evening meal, I nodded off to sleep in my armchair, but later woke and though my tea must be ready, it was, ready to go straight into the bin, as it was done to a dried up black crisp that you would even give to your worst enemy. This I thought was not a good thing to repeat as it could have lead to a serious fire, not to mention a wasted meal, so I did exactly as Chris Gunn has suggested and got a plug-in timer. Can't ever remember falling to sleep though while the oven was on after I started using the timer, but I felt safer all the same.

Regards Nick.

Well, for my 'two-pennyworth' I find it incredible that anyone would want a machine that just plugs straight into a wall socket with nothing in between. Small No-Volt Release devices are cheap as are start and stop buttons. All my machines, both single-phase and three phase run with converters, are equipped with NVR devices but that's only me.