Originally Posted by
rickjamesbrown
I recently purchased a Novakon Pulsar a couple months ago, when I got around to setting it up the lever drawbar (LDB) acted "sticky" and the spring didn't return it to vertical (hadn't even run the tool yet, that was how it worked after I turned it on and move the z-axis up clear from the shipping block.
I took the assembly apart and noticed that the cam inside it was bent and even with it off and everything disconnected (just the cam in the block between the two bearings), it wouldn't spin freely. John was nice enough to have a new cam, bearings, brass bushing, and clips sent to me. Assembled everything today, cam spins freely, attached arm. Went through the drawbar tightening procedure: Tighten it all the way, back it off 1 turn. Tighten the collar all the way down and then back it off 1 turn. Then I installed the LDB assembly on the tool. First pull is very "sticky" again, and it sounds like something is slipping. Took the LDB assembly apart again and noticed that the cam shaft is again bent, and the brass bushing has a flat on it (same problems I had with the original).
Does anyone have a Pulsar with an LDB? Do you have problems with it? I'm actually super disappointed... the LDB was one of the reasons I went with Novakon over other brands (I don't have shop air where I am). I'm thinking that maybe it's just a bad design and very poorly machined - I mean the fit and finish of the Pulsar in general leaves some to be desired, but the machining on the LDB seems super sloppy.
In any case, I took the entire LDB assembly off the tool, just to check if anything was wrong with that. I can't really see anything obvious wrong though. I did take a video looking up through the spindle assembly, and while the taper doesn't obviously look to have excess runout (don't have a dial indicator yet... I know, I need one, I'm very new to owning a mill. It's the first thing I'm going to buy when I get this damn thing finally set up), the bore where the drawbar sits seems to very noticeably wobble. Here's the link to the video (
) - It was taken with my phone on a block pointed up through the spindle with the tool set to 100 rpm. Does that look normal? This drawbar problem has me wondering what other problems I might encounter with this tool.
Anyway, thanks for any/all your help.