Machine mounted tachometer.
How often have you wondered what the speed of your lathe/mill spindle really was? If you needed to know you would have to lift the cover and look at where the belts were orientated. Then you need to look it up in the manual or on the chart stuck to the belt guard and try to figure out the setting. Then again there is always the problem that imported motors generaly are 50Hz motors and when run at 60 Hz the speed is quite a bit different. Last, even if you have a hand held mechanical or optical tach you then have to lift the guards to sense the spindle pulley.
In response to the above problem I, together with my partner, have developed a micro controller machine mounted tachometer. It uses reflective optical sensors so there is no need to make a disk with a slot cut in it. Simply place a piece of reflective tape on a flat non reflective pulley or if the pullley is shiny place a piece of black electrical tape
on the face of the spindle, bend the provided sensor mount to fit your location and install the display. A picture will be posted in the file section.
The tachometer is battery powered. The batteries should last 6 moths or more. Other features of this tach is that it can accept up to two sensors for those machines that use a seperate spindle and mill motor. The tach is low cost and has been tested on every machine I own from a sherline to the full size knee mill. Speed readings of 30 to 9999 RPMs within 1%. Best of all it is low cost. Contact me at the below address for pricing and options.

Dan Mauch
www.camtronics-cnc.com
dmauch@camtronics-cnc.com
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