WARCO WM-250 lathe family and WM16 mill

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

With the WM250 V-F out of its twelve month warranty but still under two years old from new I am reluctant to spend yet another £277 (or maybe more) on another repair which may or may not work.

You seem to be falling for the old myth of the 12 month warranty. That was scrapped many years ago, although the retailers often want you to forget that. In the modern world, it's only in North America that that 12 month warranty still has currency. Here in the UK, AFAIK we have something up to 6 years, depending on the product. I certainly wouldn't expect to be repairing / replacing a machine tool after 12 months.

You should be more robust with Warco. If necessary, contact the local trading standards for advice. Warco should be talking about how they will repair or replace the faulty parts. Certainly sounds like a manufacturing or design fault which they are liable for, unless they can show you have abused or modified the product.

You should also post here to let us know how you get on. If they don't offer decent after sales support and / or products that are reliable, we should all be warned.

Murray

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Thanks Murray, I have noted your advice with considerable interest. I will certainly post here to let you and other interested parties know how things proceed from this point.

Rik

[John RuddParticipant @johnrudd16576]

I'd certainly be interested to hear how you get on, I just ordered £2k's worth of lathe from them yesterday at the show…..

 

Hope you resolve your situation to your satisfaction….

Edited By John Rudd on 10/05/2015 16:36:37

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

I’d have thought this is very much down to Warco to sort out – as mentioned things have to be good for 5 or 6 years (or a reasonable period of time) and they have also charged you a lot of money for not doing anything and a fix that didn’t work. I’ll be very much interested to see how they respond, and it will very much govern where I get my band saw from!

David

[BowberParticipant @bowber]

I also agree with Muzzer, European law is such that the product has to last a reasonable time, so a £10 camera wouldn't be expected to last but a £2K camera would have a reasonable expectation to last years.

Steve

[John RuddParticipant @johnrudd16576]

I wonder if we can draw Warco's attention to this?. After all they are a site sponsor…

Neil?

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

One thing you may need to do is get an independent engineers report on the failure of the lathe and an assesment of condition etc.

My wifes HP laptop failed recently after just under 2 years, contacted the retailer who tried to tell me it was HP's responsibility, after putting them straight on UK consumer law etc, they asked that I submit an engineers report, cost me £25 but once they had that, they paid up in full including the £25 for the report,. The report stated that the laptop was in good condition , no signs of misuse and the fault was a result of premature component failure not commensurate with the age of the laptop. It this sort of information you need in order to pursue a claim under Sale of goods act if the goods are older than six months, you have up to 6 years in UK (5 in Scotland) in which to pursue a claim through the courts if the retailer fails or refuses to repair, replace or compensate adequately.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Update. The second repair in a year has been made to my WM250 VF and WARCO are bringing it back to me tomorrow. I have enquired as to what they had to do to put it right and was told that the speed control board was damaged and had to be replaced.

So this will be the 2nd replacement speed control board in less than a year. Right now my remaining concern is that the reason for these boards failing has not been identified (it appears that WARCO do not employ anyone with sufficient diagnostic skills to pinpoint the root problem).

I am of course very pleased that they have done what they have done but from now on I have been told to only switch the lathe on at its lowest speed setting (which is something I have always done anyway).

With the lathe being away for five weeks I will be glad to have it back again.

Rik (fingers crossed)

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

Rick – can I ask if Warco charged you for the second repair?

David

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Certainly David. This second repair is not being charged. Or to be strictly accurate, no mention of charges have been made.

Rik

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Rik, if it's any consolation I always start my lathe & mill initially from lowest speed, then it's ok to start from where I was, may be it's something to do with all that electrickery stuff that needs to warm things up initially, maybe the board doesn't like being kicked up the a*** with full voltage on start up, when I finish I always set the speed control back to zero… just my methodology … always wanted an 'ology, …where've I heard that before .

George.

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

I’ve noticed on my new 250V lathe that the dial on the carriage hand wheel is calibrated with each division shown as 0.25 mm. So far so good, but the scale on the wheel then counts 10 graduations as 1, 20 graduations as 2, and so on and so on (see photo). This seems really unhelpful as to work out how far it’s moved you have to multiple the wheel by 10 then divide by 4. I’m just curious as to why it has been done like this ? Surely it would have been better for the first major graduation to read 2.5 ?

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I imagine it's so that each major division is a "tenth" of an inch.

Rod

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 25/10/2015 07:14:54:

I imagine it's so that each major division is a "tenth" of an inch.

Sorry, that should of course be 100th with each division being a thou. I wonder if the leadscrew is 2.5 mm pitch or 10tpi?

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

David, just to clarify, went to workshop & took a couple of pics…

set zero on saddle scale & digi readout..

0 – 1 reading…

Digi reading…

Imperial equiv'… 0.098"

moved saddle to 1 div'…

1 div = 0.010"

Hence 0 -1 on hand wheel = 2.5 mm saddle travel… 1 div = 0.010" travel ~ 0.25mm, as shown on saddle scale… ( calculator says .00984" ), readings +/- a couple of thou' all dependant on back lash on rack, accuracy of digi etc. Hope this has made it clearer.

George.

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

Thanks Mechman48 – you have gone to quite a bit of trouble for me and that’s really appreciated.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

No probs; just confirmed for myself at the same time, always willing to help where I can.

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

My new WM250V came with a C spanner that fits the slotted nut shown below. Can I use this to hold the spindle whilst changing chucks – for some reason it feels like this is a bad idea (will it do something bad to the main bearing setup?) so I thought I’d better check with those more knowledgeable than myself first? (I need to find a way of locking the spindle without using the chuck – all part of making a back plate for a collet chuck)

 

Edited By David Cambridge on 29/10/2015 08:05:48

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

David, the slotted nuts allow for adjustment of spindle endfloat and bearing pre-load. I wouldn't suggest you use those to stop the spindle turning.

Not sure why you want to do this anyway, are you assuming the chucks are threaded onto the spindle?

The chucks on these lathes are mounted with three studs through the spindle flange

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

Thanks Graeme

You have confirmed my worry that it was a bad idea – luckily I have this forum and helpful people like yourself to guide me!

When changing chucks I find it easier to hold the spindle still as I undo the bolts on the studs. Normally that’s dead easy because it’s straight forward enough to find something on the chuck to take hold of. However, at the moment I’m sorting out a back plate to mount a collet chuck and it’s tricky to keep it still. (It will be fine when it’s done – it’s just during the machining that I’ve got this problem. It’s nothing I can’t work round though).

David

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Ditto Graeme's comment; I use the chuck key in the chuck sockets to hold the spindle whilst I undo the 3 nuts on the back of the flange… mains plug out of course… or hold the jaws with a shifter, if you haven't already I would change the nuts & washers for flanged nuts, saves fiddling with nuts & washers in the tight space at the back of the spindle flange… really could do with another 5mm in the gap!.

George.

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

The Warco 250 manual forgets to mention how to change the belt position. Does anyone know how to do this ? According to the manual it’s important that the tensioning roler is correct, but it fails to mention how to adjust it ?

Thanks

David

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by David Cambridge on 08/11/2015 16:05:13:

According to the manual it’s important that the tensioning roler is correct, but it fails to mention how to adjust it ?

.

I would imagine that adjustment is a simple three-handed matter of slackening the black Hex-head bolt; then rotating the disk to push the jockey-wheel in just far enough to set the correct tension [whatever that might be]; then, before anything slips, tightening the Hex-head.

Sounds a doddle

MichaelG.

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Hi David

Sorry I don't know which model 250 you have – I have a manual for the latest 250V inverter model if you need any info copying and posting here re belt positions etc. The roller (i.e. tension) is adjusted by loosing the bolt arrowed as Michael says…

 

Hope this helps

Cheers

Garry

Edited By Garry_C on 08/11/2015 18:01:32

[David CambridgeParticipant @davidcambridge45658]

Thanks Garry. That did the trick.

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