Warco GH1322 start up

[Mike StableParticipant @mikestable87943]

Just take delivery of a Warco GH 1322 lathe . It is probably about a 2003. I can not get it to start up. When I put electric to it the power light comes on. When I hold in the " JOGGING " button with the chuck guard down the chuck turns OK but as soon as I let go it stops. There does not seem to be a nice large clutch gear lever to do forward, reverse and switch it on or am I just stupid missing something that is obvious.

Any ideas,

Thanks , Frustrated

[Mike StableParticipant @mikestable87943]

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Mike,

The Jog switch only applies power to the motor whilst it is depressed, thus allowing you to inch the spindle round by whatever amount needed, and the motor WILL stop when released.

There should/must be a green Start button that energises the coil on a contactor to provide continuous power to the motor, with a Stop button to break the power to said coil thus stopping the motor.

If it's your first lathe, then frustration is part of the learning curve.

Don't dispair, we all went through that phase, and continue with varying degrees of

Geoff – Starting to calm down, but not much.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Switch on, light should come on then start stop and reverse in on the lever to the right of the carriage.

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Mike,

Look at the tailstock end of the lathe, and on the very end is a box usually with a clear plastic cover.

This is the forward / reverse switch. now look on the other side and you will see a round shaft heading toward the carriage, at the carriage it is connected to a lever which has indents for forward / stop/ reverse.

Its just to the right of the main carriage handwheel

Lofty

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The emergency stop button sometimes catches people out.

From another lathe's manual "Push the emergency stop button in and rotate clockwise until it pops out.".

Check the grizzly website for a manual of a similar lathe. If you can't find the equivalent start with the 9249 which is the Warco BH600. Not a gearhead but everything else is the same.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

This might be the one.G9036

it's 9Mbyte by the way for casual surfers.

[DerryUKParticipant @derryuk]

<There does not seem to be a nice large clutch gear lever to do forward, reverse and switch it on>

As JS suggested this lever is on the right of the carriage low down. Mine has a bright red knob on it.

I had exactly the same problem as you when my lathe was delivered from Warco so I phoned them up for instructions.

The Grizzly manual above is the one. It's a shame Warco don't do similar.

Derry.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Please download the manual and read it carefully, if nessesary get an experianced friend to oversee what you are doing because if you cannot find the start lever I question how experianced you are with a piece of equipment that can seriously hurt you.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

And If you're still not sure where the forward/reverse lever is, it's arrowed in the pic below

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

I have to admit, that's not where I would search for the on/off switch!

Neil

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

I'd guess I'm not the only person on here who would have trouble finding the start lever on that machine. Normally you'd interpret the one arrowed as being a conventional three rod control set-up where the lever on the side of the carriage controls the power feed stop / start & forward / reverse. Like my P&W Model B and countless other machines. Linking it to the spindle power is just plain perverse. Especially if it can also double as a normal third rod system although there doesn't look to be room for the mechanical interlings on that one.

There are darn good reasons why normal practice is to have motor power control (and spindle clutch if fitted) at the headstock end. Extra buttons for direct from saddle control are of course a decent idea on larger machines where the headstock can be a walk away, say 3 ft between centres up, but not for use as the normal thing. Also not totally convinced by clutchless direct drive to spindle arrangments even though my beloved Smart & Brown 1024 VSL has that form of drive. At least the Smart & Brown has things sensibly arranged so that all is obvious with the forward, reverse and (monster) stop buttons falling easily to hand on a big sloping panel at chip tray height. The buttons in a box at the back of the headstock a fair stretch of the way over arrangment on the Warco machine is indefensibly bad in concept. The really idiot thing is that a sensible arrangment as per the S&B, Harrison M250 et al is simpler, cheaper and lots less parts.

Given the price / specifications / dimensions equation such machines look to be attractive for a training environment. I shudder to think of the cock-up potential when someone trained on one of these has an emergency with a big machine having headstock controls and conventional third rod set-up. Yes I kinow you should stamp the tromp bar but when the brown and sticky hits the rotating blades big time its awfully hard to go against what you have always done. Certainly I've stretched for the usuall stop button instead of stamping the emergency in the past (big Pollard pillar drill).

Clive

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

I'd be thoroughly confused no end as well with that stupid layout!

What on earth were/are they thinking off doing it like that, especially those buttons virtually out of reach?

Made me think of the V10P horizontal controls on the headstock, but that was a small lathe, unlike the GH1322.

Trouble is, manuals made available are pretty useless, so thank goodness for Grizzly ones.

Geoff – Shaking head in astonishment.

[DerryUKParticipant @derryuk]

<What on earth were/are they thinking off doing it like that, especially those buttons virtually out of reach?>

You don't have to stand as far away as in the picture Geoff and the lever is at pocket height, where my hand normally is

Derry.

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Agree Derry, but you still have to reach over the headstock, and that flat surface is just begging to have stuff plonked down on it, even with the best of intentions not to do so.

That 'lever' looks like an overgrown/elongated button with far too many functions, especially the motor control circuitry. That's just inviting a wrong move/confusion is it not, or am I missing something?

I know I would get confused if I didn't use the machine regularly

Geoff – Calmed down now.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

The answer is SAFETY, not helath and safety YOUR safety.

This arrangement has been in industry for at least 20 years and the lathe mentioned is a light industrail lathe so you would expect it to conform to these standards.

Take a lathe like my TOS, again light industrial with a 40" or 1 metre between centres.

This one, being a throwback to the east European designs does have the forward reverse clutch on the headstock.

However one of the first jobs I did with this, threading on the end of a long shaft meant I was on my limits to watch the tool at the tailstock end and work the clutch.

Result one broken tool and wrecked job but could have been far more serious.

I got away with this by cranking the clutch lever so it was reachable from the tailstock end.

By big TOS, two metres between centres had the start / stop / reverse on the carriage as per industy standard.

Without which it would have been impossible to use.

Just to reinforce this idea of it being industr standr look at this pic from the lathes.uk web site

dated 1968 and has a carraige mounted clutch.

Harrison M300 dated 1986.

Personally I'd be more worried about someone asking how to start a machine when it's obvious they haven't read the book or had experiance of that model.

[Anonymous]

Seems a sensible place to have the forward/reverse switch to me. I have a Harrison M300 and the control rod on the saddle falls neatly to hand as I generally stand in front of the carriage. Down for forward and up for reverse. If you need to go from forward to reverse just pull the lever all the way, which is very quick.

The main power switch is on the end of the lathe, at the back and low down, as is the coolant power switch, which is a right PITA.

Regards,

Andrew

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

The controls at the back of the headstock on the Warco (and similar) machines are for coolant on/off (agree not a great place for it, Emergency stop – again not a great place for it but you do have the foot pedal estop and brake which is far more useful, and the jog button.

During normal operation, the Forward/reverse lever is in an excellent position which as Andrew states is neatly placed for operation as most lathe work requires you standing infront of the carriage.

Cannot see how it is confusing or a stupid layout!

The one thing missing from these machines is a drive clutch (design in progress to adapt an electric clutch from a car ACU – watch this space)

I had a friend over recently who's main lathe is a Myford S7 and he had no problem with the operation of my lathe.

Graeme

[macmarchParticipant @macmarch]

I have the BH600. Great machine with everything in the right place. Only had two problems. 1) The control lever was too low, it caught in the pocket of my workshop jacket. 2) The motor. I changed over to a VFD drive and what a difference. No need for a clutch. When I am screwing the head will stop in a 1/4 turn at 100 rpm.

[CrabtreeengineerParticipant @crabtreeengineer]

Hi all, I have three of these Warco Machines, a 1322, a 1330 & a 1660 & the controls for neutral forward & reverse are all in the same place on a lever to the right of the carriage. The only difference as I see it is that the 1660 goes forward when the lever is raised, as the manual states it should & on the 13 series they go forward when the lever is moved downwards.

Potentially this could be confusing, but frankly I have never found it so, one just needs to remember which machine one is working. I could change them to be all the same but have never seen the need.

As others have stated, these outstanding lathes are designed for light industrial use & as such this control is exactly where it should be & indeed has been for decades on many old British lathes.

On longer bed lathes one is not always working at the headstock end but one is always working either at the tail stock or carriage, hence that is where the control lever should be.

In my youth I worked a gun barrel lathe, double carriage & a 60 foot bed length, the control lever was in the same place to the right of each carriage. If it wasn't one would have a very long run to the head stock if you were working at the extreme length of the bed!

For emergency stop use the stomp brake, it works just fine.

For cutting metric threads with an imperial lead screw up to a shoulder I tend to use both the stomp brake & the on off switch., then reverse out without disconnecting the half nuts. One can cut up to a shoulder with ease by using this method.

Regards R.M.Hubbard CEng

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