Brought a new toy home - Wells-Index 860

[B34VD]

Wow, that's a beast of a mill you picked up there, Ron. A VFD drive should run it with no problem. I've used Automaction Direct with no issues but there are plenty of good ones out there. A RPC is another option but they can be kind of pricey if all you need is to run the mill. Have fun with the new toy.

[ScrapMetal]

Wow, that's a beast of a mill you picked up there, Ron. A VFD drive should run it with no problem. I've used Automaction Direct with no issues but there are plenty of good ones out there. A RPC is another option but they can be kind of pricey if all you need is to run the mill. Have fun with the new toy.

I'd considered using a VFD but I've been "scared off" a bit being that the mill has two different motors at different hp. It's already wired to switch between the two but that would be an accident waiting to happen with a single VFD (as I understand them) if they were switched while the VFD was live. Then don't you have to re-program/calibrate the VFD for different motors?

I really don't know enough about the systems yet to make a real good decision but I'm trying to come up to speed on them.

-Ron

[B34VD]

Call Automation Direct, they have engineers you can talk to that can answer all your questions about what you can & cannot do. I've talked to them before and they're great folks. They have all kinds of vfd's, and controllers for the manufacturing industries, I'm sure they have something that will fit the bill.

[ScrapMetal]

Call Automation Direct, they have engineers you can talk to that can answer all your questions about what you can & cannot do. I've talked to them before and they're great folks. They have all kinds of vfd's, and controllers for the manufacturing industries, I'm sure they have something that will fit the bill.

Thanks, I'll look into them. It's good to have a recommendation like that to start on with so many different options out there (somewhat confusing ones at that).

-Ron

[ScrapMetal]

I now have a rebuilt power feed on the way from Wells-Index as well as an arbor support and arbor for horizontal milling. While I'm waiting for that I surfed e-bay a bit and ended up with this nice little hunk of iron and steel...

They were serious when they wrapped this one up...



and here it is, all bright and shiny.



In the meanwhile I'm still getting my head around what I'm needing to do for power. I'm trying to make sure I get the most efficient (least costly) and most reliable setup I can as well as take into consideration any future expansion of my needs. Just for laughs I will probably call the power company this week just to see what it would take to get 220v 3-phase to my office-garage/shop. Before I do though, I will check the equipment room in my office building to see what kind of motors I have powering the pumps on the HVAC system. It's always possible that I already have 3-phase in the building and just need to run a line out to my garage. (Could still be horribly expensive though considering the layout of the property but I have to check anyway.)

-Ron

[rleete]

Nice vise. Must be fun to be so rich.

If it's a residence, chances are you only have 220 single phase. 3 phase will end up costing quite a bit if you have to run lines from the street.

[ScrapMetal]

Nice vise. Must be fun to be so rich.

If it's a residence, chances are you only have 220 single phase. 3 phase will end up costing quite a bit if you have to run lines from the street.

No, it's not a residence. I have a small 4-story office building where I have a set of single stall garages on the far side of the parking lot. Initially these garages were built with the idea of leasing them to tenants but there has never been a whole lot of interest so I have two of the five rented out to someone in the nearby neighborhood and I have the remain three, at the moment. I had leased on of the spaces out to a cell phone company where they had installed some of their receivers/transmitters. For their equipment we had to put in the HVAC system to keep the communications equipment within a certain range of temperatures. The company has since been bought out or folded so I took over that space as my "shop".

I just checked all the motors in the boiler room and they are all 3-phase. Now, I have a panel in the boiler room where there is a 220v single phase breaker that somehow goes through conduit and under the parking lot to the garages. In theory, all that needs to be done is to run some new wire out to the garage. In reality though I am not sure just how practical that would be. I doubt that you could pull another 3-phase wire through the same conduit that the 220v single phase is already in (even if it was allowed by "code"). Possibly one could pull the single phase and replace it with 3-phase but then I would have to separate out the 3-phase back to single phase for the furnace, lights, outlets, garage door openers, etc.

So, even though I have 3-phase on the property, I'm not sure that will get me any closer to a "solution".

-Ron

[ScrapMetal]

Slowly making some headway. Turns out that there is a 1.5" pvc conduit that goes from my office equipment room out to my "shop"/garage. Two legs (3 wires) of the 3-phase were already out there so "all" I had to do was to pull another wire through. I say "all" because it was a p.i.t.a and I had to start over a couple of times, change methods, etc. but I did get it done.

Here is my pulling setup consisting of a couple lengths of 12 gauge wire, two wood screws, and a broom :



I had to run back and forth a number of times to keep the wire feeding. It would have helped if I had taken the time to make a solid spool of some kind then there would have been less running but it worked out okay. You may notice that I also pulled through a nylon cord to make any possible future pulls that much easier.

I found and ordered a 3-phase load center on e-bay to replace the box in the "shop" and am just waiting for delivery. I don't think swapping out the boxes will be much fun but a guys got to do what a guys got to do.

-Ron

[ScrapMetal]

Finished putting a new "load center" in the shop/garage today so I now officially have 3-phase in my shop panel. After doing a bit of homework I determined that my 3-phase is 208v, fortunately both motors appear to be rated for 208v, although it's on the "minimum" side, and there shouldn't be a problem running them. All I have to do now is to put in a run and an outlet for the mill to plug in to (and re-wire the motors for 208/220v).

I'm still in the process of figuring out what to do about the DRO but that won't prevent me from firing it up and getting a bit of work done on it.

Updates to follow,

-Ron

[rleete]

Pulling wires is a huge pain in the butt. Wiring in general is as well, but that's about the worst part.