This has to be the most up-graded mini lathe to ever exist.

At 3:31 I totally expected you to say "I also can't stress enough how much it feels like a blue monster staring back at me". Those cable glands look like eyes!

We should all pitch in and get this gentleman a band saw, I've seen him use a hacksaw in his videos more than I've used one my entire life. Great content 👍

Tune in next week for the dramatic conclusion. Already up to 3mm DOC in steel and I can definitely push it further. EDIT: Alright the internet convicted me to change the wiring, no need to comment further. Also the wring is already delta, you can probably see the connection terminal in the top right corner at the 16:36 mark. See you this Saturday

Great work. Got to say it's equal parts fun and scary to watch 😁 One of the more practical reasons to use an over-size motor, is that you can still get ample power out of the motor, even when it's running below rated frequency. This makes the single belt/pulley position a lot more usable than it otherwise would be. Good stuff.

Nice! I run a 2HP 3 phase on my mini lathe as that's what I had spare. You need to operate the VFD via remote, you can probably use the controls already on your lathe for the variable speed and forward/reverse, it saves having the VFD near the lathe and getting it oily with your fingers. Steve Jordan did a great video on doing it.

When you did not use a hacksaw to cut the steel plate, I felt a great disturbance in the force.

Wow, what an upgrade! That is like a V8 weed wacker! I have a 15" swing gear head lathe that weighs 2300 LBS (1043 Kilos) and it uses a two speed, three phase, 3 HP motor. With that much power, depth of cut no longer becomes an issue for the hobbyist. Your new problem will be rigidity and damage if / when you make a mistake. I love the creative solutions to your problems, thank you for sharing.

Love the logic 'three is bigger than two' Glad you explained why your using carbide tooling, makes perfect sense when you have enough power and can't get low rpm. I have wondered what would happen with a two hp motor as I just happen to have one, going to three is total overkill but great fun. For brazed carbide, use a Dremel and a cheap Chinese diamond bit to re-shape top cutting edge for aluminium

I can't believe I bought the same motor , well a 1.5kw 2hp version. I was thinking about the 3hp one but chickened out. I fitted it a week ago and I'm loving it, great motor and what a price.

I must admit I missed seeing the hacksaw in action when cutting down your 20mm flatbar to length.. I doubled the HP to 1hp on my small scope multi function machine and it made a big difference, 3hp is going to be interesting!

4:49 For a moment I expected you to cut it with a hacksaw as usual lol

Man, you outgrown your lathe many projects ago. Awesome work.

I'd Artisan Makes had a Patron with Blueprints to his Designs/Upgrades, I'd 110% be a happy and loyal customer ! I love everything he does.

Great upgrade! Can't wait to see the fancy new stuff you make in the future 😁

The inhale i made when you pulled out that plate o' steel thinking you were about to hacksaw it.

LOL I thought putting 2HP on my Seig C6 was going to be overkill, however Im thinking of getting a 3HP one now to replace it and using the 2HP for my belt sander im building, thanks for all your videos I never miss one, as your are running pretty much the same kit I am.

Love it! I own a chinese mini lathe and one of my biggest complaints is the very low torque at slow speeds. I replaced the fuse with a circuit breaker and will overload and trip it when I'm trying to torque up on something at a low RPM. One must keep a meathook on the speed control to pull this off. It's one of several reasons that I'm on the hunt for a used 'big boy' lathe. Not only can I handler larger parts which has been another problem, I can get higher torque at lower rpm. Of course a motor swap out like this is another solution but I'm going right to a more complete solution to the shortcomings of the mini lathe. Don't misunderstand me. I've made a lot of great small precision parts with mine but if I had it to do all over again I would have bypassed the purchase and saved my money for a better lathe. I've also spent a fair bit of time making improvements to the mini lath. Hindsight of course always being 20-20.

my god. that thing is a real beast now. I have one of these 7x12 mini lathes, but I have never considered going to this level of extreme. I don't think the 42" toolbox that I have my lathe bolted to would be able to handle that level of upgrade.

Very cool! I’ve been waiting for someone to do this!

Very cool upgrade. I have the same issue with my lathe. I plan on using a sewing maching adjustable speed motor - and yes, motors prices have gone through the roof!

Be careful with the motor cooling while using VFD's . If you plan it to run a lot of time under ¿40 % - 30%? frequency the motor will burn after long sessions of use. The reason being the stock fan (mounted on the motor axis) is designed to keep it cool it at 100% frequency . Half the speed you around half the cooling (but not the heat ! it's more inefficient running it with an VFD!). For short sessions it should be okay. Or look for Forced Ventilation fan kits . Those have the fan with their own independent motor .

Yes finally, i was asking for a 3phase motor for so long. Pd: i was expecting the hacksaw to cut that big bar

You're a better machinist than a lot of fitter turners I've met over the years.

Captain! Hull integrity at 24%!

Thank you very much for sharing your creation. In my mini lathe I made smaller motor pulley combined with bigger input at middle pulley and smaller output in the middle pulley also, if I needed i could have made a bigger and shaft pulley but didn't needed, it just became powerful enough too burn cutting tools and the lathe won't stall. The lathe has two set ups 1) 2500rpm that was useless for me. 2) 1250rpm which was good but i wanted more torque. Now after pulleys mod it runs 830rpm max and it's good enough speed with very good torque and it stalls only with parting tool sometimes. The pulley grooves was a perfect match with metric thread cutting tool for my mini lathe.

Fair bit to discuss here. Firstly, I have a minilathe as well - maybe slightly bigger than yours (what would be considered a 7" lathe, but has more mass) - I run a 1.5kW 3ph motor - but I wire it in 415v mode ("Star " aka "Wye" configuration) on a single phase 240v VFD - I can tell it's the same as how I saw how you have wired yours, where the resulting power maybe ends up around half that, and this is more than enough to perform huge depth of cuts, but you're still in the "grey area" of snapping cast iron in half if you crash it. DO NOT WIRE IT IN DELTA CONFIGURATION - that would remove all doubt to causing permanent damage. Next, with VFDs, the lower the frequency, the higher the current draw - now you've wired it in star config - which is a good start as the coil resistance is increased, but you should be cautious of running the motor under 20Hz - there is a small risk of blowing up the VFD (recently happened in a FB group I'm a member of), but that risk is lowered due to the star config and 240v input. If you read the VFD manual - it should have a "Max current" setting - good to set to the max rated current on the motor's spec plate + 10%, and "Minimum RPM" (Set to 15-20Hz). Max RPM is typically 80Hz before 3ph motors begin being inefficient, but if you're finding yourself at 80Hz and wanting more - you should probably redesign primary the pulley ratio, or add pulley ratio options so it requires a belt change, 95% of your work should be within the 25-75Hz range without any belt change. Some other VFDs can also display "Alternative RPM" (by using a multiplier against the frequency) - so depending on your pulley setup, you can have it read out true spindle RPM instead of just the 3ph frequency. I never got around to doing this on mine and have come to know it intuitively, but might be beneficial to you if you get this set up before you end up getting used to it, like I have. With bigger depth of cuts, more RPM, more power - come more heat. It's time to invest in a "mist cooling system". They're $30 on eBay and need a 30psi air feed and (ideally) a source of semi-synthetic coolant mix (or plain water at minimum). It's either that, or you'll continue to burn out your carbide. I'm very much like you in that respect - just preferring to use carbide, never had HSS - but you'll find that has it's limits as well, so do yourself a favour and get a coolant setup going. Next, consider a diamond wheel setup where you can touch up your tools - a couple of 6" diamond wheels is $150 on eBay (600 grit, 120 grit), and makes for another decent project + learning curve to build the sharpening station and technique to use it, to optimise your lathe work. A properly freshened-up, mirror-finished brazed lathe tool is really something to behold. Love your work - as I continue my own journey somewhat in parallel to yours.

nice work. I quit fighting my mini lathe and just went with a 10x22. the biggest headache ive had is putting it on a wooden workbench. everything else has been gravy.

Nice work on mounting the motor pulley.

I see some very cool results from your personal build tooling, I was definitely wincing on that 2mil cut though lol Great upgrade so far, even if you didnt do anything else the variable speed and the power increase will be a huge game changer for future work. Thanks for sharing ...Oh and very pleased see that it didnt spiralise lol

Two things I learned from welding classes: #1- When welding two pieces of steel like you did, grind a groove into both sides before welding to make a more solid weld. #2- Flux spray EVERYTHING to be welded for the most reliable and strongest weld possible!😊

For a 3 phase electric motor to run on 230v you need to connect it to Delta configuration, I guess you changed it up after all.

awesome work mate

Love your work mate, I’m just about to undertake a similar conversion myself, some handy pointers in this vid! I’ll be stoked if I can take 2mm cuts in steel on the mini lathe! 😂 keep up the awesome vids!

Cracking me up that the motor is bigger than the headstock 😂

Great vid. The most important part of this motor is the colour. The blue looks great!

This is insanity and I love it

I've been thinking about taking one of these and doing an upgrade series. Starting with the small mods, eventually casting it in epoxy granite and bolting it to the bed of my 10hp Daewoo. And of course, running a driveshaft to the spindle of it to have a 10hp minilathe. Maybe someday haha.

Holy mackerel! This amazing upgrade is like putting a V-6 into your electric toothbrush! Daa-um! Great video!💪💪💪

Great job man you do great work 😊

Nice work! Very interesting projects!

That motor is Cookie Monster. I'm sitting here thinking how much it looks like Cookie Monster, and then here comes an Oscar the grouch mug on the screen suddenly, and it's like I'm on the set of Sesame Street.

Just a thought - The three screws may have been intentional to avoid warping, since 3 points define a plane and the 4th may be over-constraining. Not sure if that applies here given all of the mating surface, though.

That’s the same size motor as my 13”x28” southbend! And the same exact vfd. Benefit of the bigger lathe and gearing is rigidity and depth of cut. Biggest cut I’ve taken is .300” /7.6mm. Only because I ran out of cutting edge on my tool

With the money spent in this video, you could have probably bought a bandsaw instead 😅

Have you checked the alignment of the bed after bolting it down to a piece of 20 mm hot rolled. Just a thought?

That's pretty neat. It will be interesting to see if you can resist the urge to push the lathe til something fails. Hopefully not. I almost bought a used chY-knees mini-lathe that had a motor upgrade done to it. The seller was selling it without the motor for only $100 usd. Everything else seemed to all be there. I inspected it carefully and noticed that the bed had a slight twist in it. I assume it had a sudden stop/bind that did it in. Just be aware. Good luck.

To get slower speeds from a drill press you need to use the spindle of the drill press as a countershaft. I'm doing that, i got a central machinery 5 speed drill press and it has a 2/5 HP motor, better than 1/3 and not as good as 1/2. If you use the spindle as a countershaft then you can gear it down more and get more torque and slower speeds. The slow speed on the drill press is 760 but using the spindle as CS I get half that on the lathe. I had to take the spindle out and turn down the part where the chuck goes to 12 mm then I got a 17 tooth timing pulley with a 12mm bore, that is the same number of teeth as the lathe motor came with. The nice thing about that is that you can use the whole drill press head casting so it's all lined up. Then you just need to come up with a slide for the whole assembly for belt tension.

Outstanding!👏👏👏👍👍👍

I've got an old hafco al51 and the first thing I did was exactly this, a 3hp 3phase with a vfd, and I used two peices of 6mm flatbar under the lathe which made it easy to get the bed leveled. A lot more rigid than my old mini lathe and capable of far greater doc than would ever be done in practice. Had it taking 6mm doc in 6061! The ability to run more speed is nice which is great for the carbide I use, unfortunately not so great for vibrations due to my mounting

Be careful to keep the motor cool at low RPM. You will probably need some kind of fan to cool it.

Congrats on the upgrade... of your hacksaw...

Great upgraded. Are you a concerned about the threads on the spindle side pully stripping off? I am thinking a counter bore insetting that retaining screw on the spindle to get more purchase on the threads on the back side spindle clamp would make sure it doesn't spin off in reverse or spin the threads when pushing it.

I liked that 3 phase vevor converter

Great information thank you

That new motor looked just like the Cookie Monster when he took it out of the box 🤣🤣

Wow Bold move with the 3Hp. It's nice to have variable speed capability but safety must come first as this motor will put so much torque that the spindle and chuck may suffer. We would all like a lathe to cut deeper and faster but there are limits to all tooling and a 2mm cut for this type of lathe is very good. As machinist quality of manufacture should be our objective at the lost cost possible. Looking forward to your up coming builds,

Awesome 👍👍👍🔥🔥🔥🔥

Cables should be double insulated, either use 3 core flex (extension cord) or corrugated conduit. Also cable looks to be 1.5mm, would not have thought less than 2.5mm would do.

Brilliant video. I laughed the whole way through. How many drill press carcasses do you have standing around in your workshop?

Soon you can fabricate a better bigger lathe then what you bought! Great stuff.

Yes, a bigger motor is definitely an improvement but I see this more as a way to get a more stable speed than doing heavy cuts. With a big motor, you risk damaging your spindle bearings, shearing off the compound slide (that you luckily already removed) or even twisting the bed. My Wabeco D4000 mini lathe has a 1.4 kW motor which is what it comes with from the factory and I think this is still on the small side since the spindle speed varies quite a bit - especially on the start of a cut.

Yes! Finally another lathe vid!

Nice one.

Love this build. As others have noticed, the spindle locking nut sits quite far back due to the wider spindle pulley. To get more threads engaged by the spindle locking nut, you could machine yet another spindle pulley larger in diameter to accommodate a large diameter counter bore for the locking nut. The counter bore would be just deep enough to allow the nut to engage all the threads. Of course this restricts access for a spanner wrench, so that problem would need to be solved. An offset wrench, or a pin style wrench might solve that issue. Of course the larger pulley gives a slower speed for the same motor rpm, but that might not be an issue. You could always change the motor pulley if that even made sense.

limiting factor on this mini lathes are the headstock bearing, spindle and casting size/thickness/intended duty and the bed/crosslide widths. Interesting experiment nontheless.

10:17 first thing I saw was the cookie monster HAHA

I have just installed a 2hp 3 phase motor with a VFD on my Clarke CL430 lathe replacing the 3/4 hp single phase motor . I only used 2Hp because a used one came up on eBay with a quality KBAC inverter. It was a bit of a challange to get the motor to fit the existing adjuster plate and get it all lined up. It is now so much better to use with 170 to 1700rpm without swapping belts.

Most excellent.

16:30, i'd take a look at the wobble on the pulleys. That could end up bad if you're pushing the lathe and the motor puts too much torque on the spindle. Also those welds for the baseplate for the motor looks like an extra safety feature for over torque :D Also also, watch the temperature of the motor when using it at low speeds and pushing the motor. The VFD only changes the frequency, not the amps, so the motor will still use a lot of amps and with the low speed, the fan would have less effect because it's directly connected the the rotor. But great video and hope to see more niece upgrades for the mini lathe and mill.

Funny, I did a similar modification to my minilathe a few years ago. I'm curios to learn how you will solve the upcomming problems.

Great Job, that's the Aussie way if it is not powerful enough add a bigger motor will be good to see how it goes next week.

I should comment more on your stuff. I do enjoy your content a lot . Thanking you .

I have made keyways using a drill bit or milling cutter first to take out the majority of the metal then you just have the corners to take out by hand file or by using the mill quil that for me is much sturdier than the lathe carriage if you can lock the spindle.

Regarding the wiring, I highly recommend using thicker gauge wire. And also, you SHOULD connect the earth wire to the lathe.

Very cool

That is a BIG motor! I would like to see its very low RPM performance, that is great for drilling larger drill sizes and tapping/threading etc... 👍 And is your belt pulley on the lathe running a bit wobbly? Looked like it.

You Hot the balls,man.Thank you.

When I seen that bit of plate I thought holy crap! And then you said that you were going to cut it down to size. 🤣 Then I thought, how on earth is he going to cut THAT? That's a gutsy effort cutting a bit of 20mm plate with an Ozito 4" angle grinder. Then you backed it up and did it again. GO YOU LITTLE AUSSIE CHAMPION! Have you thought about putting a recess in the spindle pulley so the nut gets a little more purchase on the threads? I know you are probably going to anyway. You really should have double insulated wiring for the motor. Because safety. And some proper start stop switches with a magneticly latched E-stop. That thing has decent power now. Will be good to see what can be done with that machine. Nice one.

3:26, It has eyes too. So cute!

This is like shoving a twin turbo v12 in a citroen 2cv. Amazing.

is there any sort of analog input for the vfd to control the speed? it would be super cool to use a dro scale and arduino to be able to set the vfd to run the motor at a constant surface speed when taking face cuts based on the position of the scale, kinda like how the giant industrial cncs work.

With increasing your lathe’s power you may also want to consider taking a look at your tool post. In many tool post systems the sizing is determined by lathe power, presumably so it doesn’t break. The multifix style tool post I was recommended by the spec sheet for my 3kW lathe is surprisingly big. Maybe consider a faceshield in the meantime ;)

Why is the pulley on the lathe shaft wobbling? That could damage bearings or give you uneven finish on the parts. Also, I noticed to provision for belt adjustment.

Cool and everything but no hack saw for 20 mm plate?

Next step - put stepper motors on the lead screws and turn it into a CNC lathe. There are some low cost GRBL control boards that you can run it with. If you don't wanna wire up the VFD you can have a servo motor controlling the knob directly xD

As long as the spindle and bearings can handle it, no motor is too big 😂 You probably need a belt tensioner and a V belt that's fully wrapped, otherwise you're going to get black belt residue everywhere.

Didn't read all the comments, so I'm not sure if someone already said this, but when running a VFD from single phase, you need to de-rate the VFD by 50%, so you need at least a 6hp VFD to run a 3 hp motor at full load on single phase

You should make yourself a small power hacksaw. I used to have one that took 10” blades, could do whatever size blades you use. It would only need a small motor and save you a lot of effort on cutting your stock. Done right and it would always cut super straight as well. Wouldn’t always replace the hand hacksaw but would be good for cutting bar stock

I was always told to go about 10% over on VFD's and more on chinese ones but i take it you have a good supply to your house/garage so its probably not a big deal (Also worth checking how balanced the lines are into the motor underload cause they can burn out quicker similar to running them off rotary phase converters)... Only real word of advise i can give for having that much power is having a safety guard and the use of steady rests etc because if a piece slips out it will do real damage ( I have a hercus 9" i had this upgrade on but went back to smaller motor when i brought a big 7hp turret lathe..both will kill without a 2nd thought) Awesome work and keep it up :)

That motor has wires coming out of it's eyes!!!

Resto-modding at its best😎

I am putting a 2.5 HP motor on my mini mill . It has a 3/4 HP on it now but I have a need for more power .. I bought the 4 inch vice you have on you mill .. going to put it all together soon .. I think 3 HP is fine as long as you don't push it to hard .. I enjoyed , thanks ! Hey , I would enjoy more go kart vids to ..

You say you've fitted a 3hp motor to your mini lathe, but I think it could easily be argued that what you've ACTUALLY done is fitted a mini lathe to your 3hp motor ! :D

Have you tried segmented belts on your machines? They make a WORLD of difference, and as a bonus, you can make any size you need.

Drill and threading is where you will notice most of the difference in power. My logan was upgraded to a 3hp and it's still under powered. The variable tyranny takes a lot of power. I tried threading a 2 inch od part and it was bogging right down.

The reason only three attachments are supplied is to aid setting up the head alignment on a less than perfect bed casting. Four attachments will create stresses in the head casting and along the bed.

Great job that upgrade. Did you use 415v 3phase motor, with a 240v VFD? Thanks

Your mind is out of control.... BUT I LOVE IT 🤣👏🏻💪

You need to change the motor wiring to delta. Check inside of the cover plate / manual. Star is for 415v 3ph. Your vfd only outputs 240v 3ph, which means you need the motor in the delta configuration. I'm currently doing the same upgrade, 2hp version of that motor.