I've been trying to keep this issue between Laguna and myself so far...but, they really seem to be dropping the ball with their support department, as response times have extended into the weeks timeframe now. I've been dealing with some issues for a while, and I guess its time to speak out. Laguna needs to fix some problems with their lathes...
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I picked up a Laguna Revo 1524 during black friday last year. It started out great, but the last few months I've been having some problems with it. I've had the same issue with the thin thread metal on the spindle. I haven't had a loose chuck, but that thin edge of the thread at the back of the threaded portion ended up curling over a bit.
I've had other problems...the quill on the 1524, with the precise point design, is VERY POORLY supported. The quill, when extended about half way or so, basically pivots around inside of that precise point block that bolts into the front of the tailstock. The tailstock is then cast with a void inside, that provides ZERO support to the quill. This results in a quill, and whole tailstock really, that is largely incapable of doing the job it is intended to do: stabilize the blank until you've turned it down to size and removed most of the wood. Due to the fact that the quill pivots within that precise point block, it droops as it is extended, which means without a lot of great care in trying to manually ensure it contacts the blank at the dead center of rotation...the rotation of the blank then jerks the quill around, causing vibration: the exact opposite of what the whole darn thing is supposed to do!
I've been dealing with the issue since the beginning of summer. The "solution" Laguna came up with, was a little thin piece of metal, a clip, that has a tab that inserts into the channel in the side of the quill. This was supposed to stabilize it. The first couple of times, it did, but only in the horizontal direction. The quill still droops vertically, and once it starts getting jerked around by the rotating blank, that dulls this added clip, pushes it out of the way, and the quill is once again supported only by about 1" (not even, really) of metal at the front of the tailstock, and nothing else. The force of the rotating blank also seems to be causing the leadscrew to widen the hole at the back of the quill, and grind down the threads inside the quill.
Its kind of a disaster. At this point, I really just want Laguna to redesign the tailstock and eliminate the precise-point concept entirely, and give me a quill that slips into a properly bored precision hole through SOLID METAL in the tailstock, so that the quill is properly supported. The IDEA of precise point is GREAT...the implementation is horrid. I've owned a couple of other lathes, smaller but the quills on these much cheaper lathes have none of the problems the one on the 1524 does. Its a botched design and really, really desperately needs to be fixed by Laguna. I honestly cannot rely on their tailstock to support anything about 12" or larger, because I cannot slide the banjo underneath the blank, so the banjo has to sit back a little farther than normal. This means that the tailstock can only be brought up so far, which in turn means the quill needs at least half extension for the live center to reach the blank. That inevitably means droop in the quill, which means tons of vibration and a jerking, unstable quill.
Big problem for me is, there aren't any other good lathes out there that are only 24" long, and thats about all I can fit. Other 16" lathes are usually 36-42" long, and I simply don't have space for that. Needless to say, this catch-22 I've been stuck in for the last...heck, over five months now...is quite frustrating. Laguna is trying to be innovative, I think, but I don't believe they are putting in the right amount of effort into their designs to achieve their innovative goals with both quality and effectiveness.
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But wait, there is more!
I also had the motor die as well, a couple months back. I originally tried to install the motor replacement myself, which I thought would be rather easy. In the end, due to some solidly glued in screws made out of extremely soft metal, getting the lift plate off the motor ended up being an ordeal that required me to drill out the screw heads (since I couldn't use any kind of screwdriver to remove them, they were glued all along the entire thread all the way into the motor), then find the right screws (Laguna seems to be a huge fan of extremely obscure screws, like a #10-32 with a particular hex cap size). That whole ordeal took several weeks to sort out. After I finally got the new motor on, the headstock was exhibiting some kind of knocking sound that for the life of me I could not locate...couldn't tell if it was coming from the new motor itself, or somewhere within the headstock, spindle, or something related to the belt and pulleys. Ended up sending the whole headstock back and finally received the replacement last week. Should have just had em do that in the first place...guess I learned my lesson about trying to keep it "simple"...
The new headstock seems to be working ok for the most part, but, part of the original problem remains. The previous motor was definitely fried...exactly how I don't know, but it was exhibiting some wildly varying RPMs and notable changes in motor pitch. I first thought it was just having problems with a particular blank, but I eventually discovered that the motor exhibited these problems without any load at all, just the spindle itself. I then even disconnected the motor from the belt and it still exhibited problems. The problem got progressively worse, and eventually got to the point where even a relatively small load, just a Ron Brown Longworth without any bowl or anything attached, would barely turn and would cause significant RPM droop followed by spikes in RPM. The RPM set to 700, would droop into the 500s, then eventually drop into the 300s, and would struggle to clime above that. The motor was clearly fried. Seemed to come out of the blue...up to that point, the largest thing I'd turned was, IIRC, a 9" magnolia platter blank.
The new headstock and motor seem to be fine in general, I'm not experiencing problems handling load. I turned a 14" maple platter this weekend. That said, the lathe still exhibits some strange issues with RPM. When I first started testing the new headstock and motor, I was concerned that it was just as fried as the last...but the thing can actually handle a load, and its not exhibiting the same wild variability and RPM drops that the old motor was. Instead, it seems like the intrinsic nature of the Laguna PWM-based motor drive and control system has a hard time maintaining the RPM. I don't know if it is because the pulse width steps of the PWM are coarse, and the control system simply cannot adjust the motor power in finer grained steps for a more natural response curve, or something else...but, these PWM driven Laguna lathes seem to have some trouble with RPM in the sense that, when you increase the load (i.e. you apply a gouge to the wood), there is initially a sudden but slight drop in RPM, then the lathe has to find equilibrium again which takes a moment of some variable RPM until it stabilizes. When the tool pressure is increased or lightened, the lathe has to once again adjust the pulse width to achieve the desired RPM again. Increased pressure will droop the RPM for a moment or two, which isn't all that bad, but a little disconcerting. The real disconcertion comes when you need to remove the tool from the wood...you get this sudden, and larger, jump in RPM. The lathe has increased the power to the motor due to the increased load while you are cutting, and that power drives the blank faster for a short while when the tool (and thus that increased load) is removed. Its quite disconcerting, and with my most recent turnings this past weekend (first time turning with the Laguna and the new headstock and motor), that initial jump in RPM usually results in me gouging the wood. Its not a trivial jump, and its hard to get used to (I simply have not yet, and not sure if I'll be able to.)
Smaller loads of course don't really exhibit this problem much, and I was mostly turning smaller loads from the beginning of the year (the lathe didn't come till mid december last year, and I didn't really get started with it until mid january this year). Mostly 6x6x3 bowl blanks and 3x3x6 small vase blanks, with a couple of medium sized platters around 8-9". It wasn't until I started working with larger loads that things started behaving strangely, as if the laguna had problems finding an RPM equilibrium with these larger loads. So it wasn't until more recently, as I've been working my way up to turning larger and larger items, that I started encountering these issues with this lathe.
Now, I do like the promise that a PWM has from the standpoint of ensuring you have good, strong power behind turning the blank, REGARDLESS of what RPM you need to turn at. Small blank, big blank, it doesn't matter, the PWM drives the motor with strong power regardless. That was in fact one of the key reasons I chose the Laguna, that along with it being a larger lathe that would actually fit in my small workshop, and with some intriguing outboard turning options that would allow me to turn things even larger than ~15" if I wanted to. I was also intrigued originally by the precise point concept...something I now utterly loath!
The problem, in practice, is that these things are not implemented as well as they could be. I've worked with some other lathes as well...and while other lathes may not guarantee you have full power at any and all RPM settings, being that they drive the motor with analog power rather than a digital pulse, there is a MUCH more natural response curve when applying greater load and then removing that load. You don't get that sudden, and quite strong, rush of speed when you remove the gouge from the wood...you get a natural curve in the change in speed with most lathes instead.
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The new headstock and motor do seem to be ok, in that the motor is not fried, and I'm not getting a slough of strange sounds from the headstock. Its quiet, like the old one was when I first bought it, and I do love how quiet it is. I love the overall look of the Laguna. I love its wide range of options, which are quite extensive. To be totally fair, Laguna has been good in working with me when they are in contact with me as well, and have not really presented any roadblocks outside of their response times. I'm generally satisfied with the support, except I really wish they would respond more quickly (if they had, I think this whole thing would have been wrapped up in a couple of weeks or so, depending on the shipping times). Laguna seems to have a severely understaffed support team right now, and I gather that is a large part of the reason their response times are slow, too few support people and too many people to support I guess. I can't exactly fault them for that, given what's been going on the last two years...but, it is frustrating.
Anyway...I've had a couple of key issues with this lathe, and its leaving me with a fairly sour taste. I don't want to give up on it, and in the end I don't even think there is any other viable option for me with my smaller workshop. I don't know what to think really about the RPM issue...I am not sure if that is something that could really have been caught before hand, but it should have been evident in testing. I think that it could be resolved with maybe an improved PWM that supported more fine grained pulse widths...a lot of PWMs offer just 256 steps, but some offer much more, and with more pulse width options I think a smoother more natural "response curve" could be programmed into the way the control software responds to changes in load. I think that could help a lot with making the lathe less disconcerting to work with.
Precise Point is the one thing I just absolutely loath about this lathe. Its a great concept, and a horribly poor implementation of the concept. The quill simply has nothing to support it throughout its range of extension, but a relatively thin piece of metal at the front of the tailstock, and a relatively small leadscrew that, as the quill is extended more and more, actually offers less and less support! There is just nothing there to hold the quill in place, to stabilize it against all the forces involved in a rotating blank...so the quill and the tailstock are just incapable of doing the one job they have to do: hold and stabilize a blank until the bulk of the outside wood has been removed, allowing a chuck on its own to hold the blank once flipped. This aspect of modern Laguna lathes is in DESPERATE need of a redesign. IMO, its just not a viable, reliable, stable configuration as is.
Well, there it is. My Laguna story... Its ongoing, and I'm hoping for a good outcome, as I need a lathe with a 15-16" swing, but shorter than ~30"...and there really doesn't seem to be many other options.
