Thank you! I give McMaster a ton of business- the speed and convenience are too hard to pass up on, even if there is a slight premium to be paid. The parametric models they provide are jusr phenomenal, especially when if hardware changes are necessary. A find and replace works 95% of the time- that feature alone has saved me countless hours of effort.
I left the factory installed Forward-Reverse switch in place, mounted the VFD on a wall behind the mill, and wired the VFD 3 phase output directly to the Forward-Reverse switch. Followed by building and installing (at a convenient place on the mill) a remote-control panel equipped with Start/Stop and Speed Control potentiometer. Followed by programming the VFD for remote control per VFD instructions. The reason for leaving the forward reverse drum switch in place and wiring the VFD to it, was to prevent having to change the forward reverse switch direction on the remote panel when changing from low to high speed operation (which changes spindle rotation). When changing from low to high speed operation (or vice-versa), reverse the drum switch position, leaving the Forward Reverse switch on the remote panel unchanged.
That's a really nice way of doing it! You also can't beat the solid feeling of the oem directional switch. In the past I had wall mounted all of my vfds and then would have my controls on a mount within easy reach. With this shop I have been trying to make everything easily movable, so I'm trying to machine mount all controls so that I can simply unplug, roll to a new spot and plug it back in. I will be building a new control station for the bridgeport with forward reverse, e stop, speed pot, and some additional controls for an upcoming addition to this mill that's secret at the moment. At the time of recording, I just needed to get the mill running to aid in getting the shop built. Thanks for watching!
My brother, you need a lapel mic. My hard-of-hearing self is more or less given up on understanding your voice. The sound effects are nicely balanced though (the microwave for the 3d printing made me giggle!)
I sincerely apologize for the poor audio quality! We did identify this to be less than ideal and we have made efforts to improve it in our later videos. You are right though- I need a lapel mic! I hope you'll stick around, we are getting better with each video.
It's been about a year any problems with the motor using a vfd? I keep reading lot of these older motors will work with a vfd but won't last because the insulation in the coils are not high enough
Absolutely no issues. My South bend lathe is going on ~15 years with a vfd on the original motor without issue, and I've implemented dozens of VFDs on motors of all sorts throughout my career. A few things- 1. Make sure that old motor is greased- I've seen lack of lubricant kill old motors countless times, and often the VFD gets blamed when it had no part in killing the motor. 2. I spoke with Baldor about this a while back, and they had some helpful information. While it is true that modern motors sometimes use improved insulation, Baldor suggested that what often kills motors paired with VFD's is a lack of airflow at very low running frequencies, combined with the older insulation. Their suggestion was to limit the frequency override such that the motor ran between 40 and 90hz. 3. I've had no issues running within the range recommended above, but I also periodically run at much slower speeds (down to 20hz in some situations), for very brief periods, without any issue. 4. Best practice I've found is to select a pulley / back gear combination that gets me close to the speed you want, and then to use the VFD control to fine tune the speed. I appreciate you tuning in!
can this VFD be used for 1 phase output installations (for example, if I wanted to put this on a 240VAC 1P pool pump and simply wanted to run it at a slower speed?
Hi there HoneyBadger. Unfortunately this vfd cannot be used to control a single phase motor. In general, vfd control of a single phase motor is atypical. I would be cautious of trying to run a 1PH pool pump motor at a lower speed than designed, as it may fail prematurely.
