MAKE YOUR OWN THREE PHASE POWER THE EASY WAY 

Great comment, thank you for sharing. Nothing beats relay logic. I use it to replace boards in anything I can, it just plain works. I have 100 ton chiller at a paper mill that the board went up on. I installed relays and mechanical temp controls on it to replace the boards and sensors and they ran it like that for ten years. I'm with you.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Many years ago we replaced a 50 ton Trane AC with a Commercial carrier Unit with twin Semi Hermetic Compressors and unloaders. I Built an automatic unloading control scheme to shed load and also allow it to run in low ambient temperatures. I used mechanical adjustable pressure controls like we used to use in freezers years ago. I set up 4 stages of cooling and 3 unloading stages that were automated off of pressure to take care of varying loads. I set everything up with a Nitrogen bottle and regulator first before installing it. It worked great for 3 years until another Company subbing out for Carrier building services could not understand what I had done and convinced the owner that they could save him on utilities with a computerized overlay. They tore all of my beautiful work out and sold the owner thousands of dollars worth of controls and years of constant tweaking and upgrading. I used to be a contractor Rep or trouble shooter for Carrier Commercial industrial machines including chillers. I got sent out to that same customer after about 4 years because of issues and it kept shelling out compressors. I told them to bring back the guys that did all of the changes and make them pay for it. With what I had done originally they would have never had an issue. Instead they lost compressors due to improper unloading, or should I say no unloading in low temps, and washed the oil out of the crankcases by slugging or bringing back liquid refrigerant. Liquid refrigerant is a poor lubricant for compressor bearings. The old Antique Trane units had a simple discharge air damper or baffle actuated by a cylinder using discharge refrigerant pressure. They also had one stage of unloading. They worked for 25 years of constant running before just plain wearing out. Water is wet and oil is slick and no amount of computer control and software is going to change or affect that. Do you think our super smart young programmers can ever learn that? I am 55 and I started out while we still had Analog Electric and pneumatics not to mention relay logic. DDC computer controls were just starting out on basic DOS systems and I got in on the ground floor so to say. I loved what the computer systems could do but I could integrate and mix and match systems and I understood them. I could understand the logic in a much larger total system that had to synchronize with many others. It seems that we have lost that in todays world. Oh well, good luck with your future projects, we need more guys like you out there showing the youth a different path.

I have been giving that some thought for awhile.

Atta boy Jose

I love it " when the paperwork is done" priceless mate!

I'll look into that.

That's a pretty good idea.

That would suck but I've replaced a lot of them over the years for that reason.

Good luck

Thank you Dan, just left you a voicemail.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Thank You Brother for contacting me and the conversation! I enjoyed it tremendously! You are truly an inspiration to me and others I am sure! I Thank You for it, and all that You do! Have a great day and a wonderful 2020!

Everyone does things a little differently, I just do what works for me and use the combination of caps that meters out the best.

Yes he can. It's not as hard as it looks, he'll do well with it.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Men like you are getting rare these days thank you sir .

Nice to meet you sir. Seems three phase is expensive everywhere. Greetings from north of the border.

Good evening. You are correct and I misspoke. Good catch!

You should be able to do it the same way I am here, just match all of your motor voltages. Your capacitor sizes might be a bit different than what I'm using.

Did you ever do this? I'm in Australia and have the same 240V coming into my house.

Pleasure to meet you

Thank you Doug

@@TheTradesmanChannel Prof do you know how to make a VFD unit

Your issue is going to be getting down to 208/230v three phase. Get a transformer for that and then you can also pull single phase power from the 208/230 volt three phase as each leg with run around 115v.

There is a difference between vfd and a rotary phase converter. If you did it right when building it, then you do not get the voltage spikes that you do with a single to three phase vfd. The rotary phase converters work well with the old motor. On my 2x72 grinder I built it with a vfd rated motor due to high voltage peaks put out by the vfd.

I have not but I probably could

It's not too bad at all.

Thanks buddy

Good afternoon. The idler (starter) does not keep generating power once you remove power from it unless it was a special type of motor.

@@TheTradesmanChannel I might have messed up the lingo. The 1/4 hp spin starts the 5hp which then becomes the three phase generator for the load motor? I think I may be missing a core concept. Thanks for the reply.

Never too late to learn my friend.

You are right as long as you have the proper insulation class motor due to voltage spikes. In all reality I could have used a single phase motor on this piece of equipment just as easily.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Interestingly, there are No such things as single phase motors. . . How can you make them rotate. ?

Capacitors on many of them, some are shaded pole motors. I just build and fix things for a living.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Yes, many have an internal capacitor and a 3rd winding. :-)

And since that 3rd winding taps into the centre of the main winding, together with the capacitor, effectively makes it a 3-phase Motor, not a very good 3-phase motor but they work. 🙂

I think it should work, you need 1hp to get it going.

How big is your sawmill motor now?

To do a 100hp electric motor you would need a 300hp three phase motor to make the three phase.

On a three phase motor the three poles of power are close enough initiate the turning of the armature. On single phase (120v or 240v) motors the poles are not close enough to start the motor turning. With this setup we are using power robbed from both legs of the single phase supply to generate the third pole.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Thanks for confirming. I was thinking that... though never seen done before. Good to know as a method. I found that the Prius CVT's since last so long can be found for a relatively great price, so purchased one so far and plan to get another. They have two Motor Generators (MG's) that are a permanent magnet design. I've thought could run one as a motor on single phase and the other as a generator, generating three phase. I also was thinking and will do most likely, just run one or both (if lazy and don't machine or modify the case to make separate enclosures) off a 18HP motor to limit the power for now while testing. Eventually, the plan is to make an engine welder/generator and potentially a hybrid garden tractor.

Final voltage is 208/230 3 phase, idler motor runs on 220v.

The 3 phase idler motor is acting like a rotary transformer, the rotor being the primary winding, and the stator windings being the secondary windings. The rotor is inductively energized by the single phase supplied to 2 legs of the stator, and as it spins, it induces a voltage in the 2 other windings, creating the phase difference mechanically as the magnetic field of the rotor sweeps the stator windings. You end up with three voltages that are 120° out of phase as a result of the physical position of the stator windings, with frequency equal to the single phase supply, but with the downside that the ‘generated’ voltages will drop below the single phase supply as you load the converter. Having an idler 3x or larger (the larger the better) than your load motor will alleviate the voltage drop issue, but you can use boost transformers to step up the 2 generated voltages a bit so they don’t drop as low as if you just had a bare rotary converter. Rotary phase converter have been working for over 100 years.

Yes.

Star

@@TheTradesmanChannel so what have to be done to generate 415v between phases?

To be quite honest, I don't think you'll be able to with homemade equipment.

I don't think it would. Remember you're not generating power here, you're robbing a little from the other two legs to make a third.

@@TheTradesmanChannel thanks yea it seems like the only way is to pay the big bucks for me.. thx.

If you're talking about the pony motor to get the whole thing spinning, any motor that can get it moving should work.

Good evening. That meter is actually meant to do that, it's a true rms meter so it'll never go to true 0. This thing will read the milivolts on a neutral wire.

Good morning. You have two options, replace the motor with single phase or build one of these.

@@TheTradesmanChannel 3phase motor cannot convert on single phase?

It cannot

That's exactly what this does.

Like wise Jim. Way over my capacitor.

Well if you actually watched and listened that's exactly what Jim did, he disconnected both capacitors and then it is exactly the same as you described, but as Jim pointed out the 3 phase motor will not like it at all, and if it is an older "tired" motor as he described it, meaning with old poor insulation on the windings they will heat up because of the voltage and current imbalance and sooner rather than later the motor will fry nicely. Fire extinguishers at the ready chaps!

It is easier but I replace way too many compressors as well as motors due to start cap malfunction to want to worry about it at home. For the record, that is just my preference, not a you should do it like me statement.

Hello T

You like a fried breakfast I take it ? Lol

@@samrodian919 I'm ok at it.

This is only a 100 amp sub panel. A 100 amp panel can run a pretty big shop, one guy working alone is rarely using more than 20amps at a time as he's running tools.

TheTradesmanChannel I also have a 100amps coming off the panel to a cottage, so just have to be aware of whats going on over there. However my jointer and table saw use 240v, just have to be careful when my son and I are working the tools together.

It's the amp draw you have to watch. Both of those tools probably draw around 15amps each, total of 30 amps. A household generally is drawing around 40 amps at any given time. So if you have a 200 amp panel you're only drawing say 70amps with two of your main tools running. Say you are running 1500 watts worth of lighting in your house, which would be say 15 100 watt light fixtures at once, that is only around 15 amps.

TheTradesmanChannel my issue is not having enough breakers and circuits, might have to upgrade the panel someday and run more wiring.

Add another three phase motor into the circuit, it helps clean up the power quite a bit.

@@TheTradesmanChannel does the 2nd idler size matter ? I was thinking 2 hp ? I also have a 20 hp motor i could use , would it be better to just do 1 20 hp ?

Adding another small idler running off of your phase converter helps to pull the single phase closer to the same plane as your three phase. It will never be quite perfect, but you can get it within the 10% safety net.

@@BlueFlameOfLife Curious what HP your hoist motor is? The number one aspect of a phase converter is how much larger your idler motor is than your load motor. 3x is a good rule, but the larger the better, as far as voltage balance. Multiple idlers in parallel is a good idea, as smaller 3 phase motors are cheaply available and it gives you some flexibility to only run the idler you really need. If 10hp isn’t enough, adding another 5hp or 10hp idler sounds better than adding a 2hp idler (you can run the 5hp on its own for example as a smaller phase converter for running say 1-2hp machines)To Minimise the voltage drop of the generated legs, the most stable and durable method is to use buck/boost transformers to boost the generated voltages a bit so they don’t drop so low. 2X 3 kVA 24/48V buck/boost transformers wired for boost placed across the 2 generated legs should help quite a bit. If your single phase is connected across A-B, your boost transformers should be connected across B-C and another boost transformer across A-C. A-B is still the single phase voltage and is “passed through” the converter, nothing done to it by the idler motor nor by the boost transformers, and is very stable as it’s coming from the power company from a large transformer.

@@Orgakoyd thanks for the reply and the information, i actually got this fixed not to long ago, my RPC works just fine but the 4hp 3 ton hoist i had was wired wrong when it was rewired from 460v to 230v . so when i was trying to run it, it was fighting its self. once we got that fixed my voltage stopped dropping out when in service. but i may have to get another idler motor if i end up getting another piece of equipment but we shall see. thanks again for the help

I can do that

Thanks sir

Good morning, go to tradesmanoffgrid.com and send me a private message. It sounds like you're missing a pony motor.

@@TheTradesmanChannel Thanks I sent you. Thumb up Cheer!

That is the easy way but this one cost me around $50 and it works just fine.

There is that, good morning.

Get a camer and do it better.

You sound like me, might even call me cheap

@@TheTradesmanChannel lol