Mike,
I will say that it is very difficult not to stain the lathe with drool. I can even see it cry a bit when I come home from being out of town (or is that me)?
I do not have a digital tach on the lathe. I had thought about installing one but haven't worried about it yet. As far as speed... It was turning as fast as it could without shaking... I'm not sure if you could tell by the photos, but I have a potentiometer in my control pendant. The lathe is run by a VFD, so I have complete variable speed. Yes, I do actually mean complete speed variability. If I need to turn something really slow I just put the lathe in back gears and don't loose any torque from the motor/pulleys turning slow.
Yes, the banjo is huge. The thing is almost 3' long (if I remember correctly) and is obviously heavy (about 100lbs) so there is some resistance just from the weight. However, I smoothed the bed pretty well and it stays waxed so manipulating the banjo is not to bad. It also helps that the underside of the banjo is smooth as glass.
Interesting you would mention motor placement. I really wanted to mount the motor inside of the main pillar. However, that piece is an H beam with 1" walls and 3/4" web. I didn't even want to think about cutting away any of the material in addition to modifying the headstock. So I was stuck with mounting the motor up high or close to the base. You can see what I opted for and the reason was that I didn't want the 70lb motor that high up. Every little bit of mass at the bottom helps out. The belts do oscillate a bit, but nothing to wild. I've also got the potential lack of hp covered. There is a 5hp waiting in the shop if the need ever comes around.
The computer case is just an enclosure to hold the VFD and brake module. The green cable leads to the control pendant as you noted. There are two black cables that exist the rear of the computer box. One goes to the motor and the other goes to the RPC on the other side of the garage. I built the rotary phase converter b/c I was in the process of acquiring two 3phase tablesaws and didn't want to pay big bucks for the power company to run a line to me. Having 3phase also made purchasing a VFD for the lathe a bit cheaper. You can see what I did with the computer case on my blog.
Thanks for the comments and I'm glad you like it!
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I just figured you know your RPMs (at least the fastest for each pulley) because you can just do the math with your motor speed and pulley size. I'm assuming your motor is a 1725 RPM, right?
Originally Posted by Michael Poorman
From what I understand the robust tool rests actually have that rod epoxied in place. I didn't really like that idea so I decided to try welding it. 
