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Darren's active projects

Well guys, I think my time with this motor generator is finished. I never posted after I picked up the staror from the motor shop because they did not wire it according to my diagram. They reconnected the star point and sealed it up, leaving it a 9 lead motor instead of the 12 that i had requested, or making the internal connections and bringing the 3 out that i needed. I think they misunderstood what I was trying to do. Anyways, the star point was accessible , so I added the 3 leads myself. I carefully soldered and used heat shrink, then tested all my connections, i did everything right. Then i tied the windings and sealed it with glyptol varnish, and once cured I reassembled the whole unit. Not a small job. Took my time but it was several hours. Anyways, I am now getting high resistance on one of the windings...should be 1 ohm, and i'm getting 34 ohms. The 5 other windings are at 1 ohm. So i don't know what happened. The leads that i added could not have moved, they are tied and sealed with the correct varnish. It has to be a break in the winding. I powered up a headlight bulb through that coil hoping to see smoke in the leads in a spot where i could fix it, but no dice.

I tried to save the DC drive, but i'm done. I went and saw my supplier today and he has a pile of brand new 2-3-4-5kw servos sitting there, but does not have the matching servo drives. I need to do some research. I think we can put together a deal.
 

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So...I just hooked up a car battery directly to the winding, effectively shorting out the battery, hoping for smoke, got none, but guess what...I'm back to 1 ohm. So it's definitely flaky
 

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Something odd there- looks like you have to hook it up outside with a fire extinguisher handy and let it rip ?

This:
237C3C55-A553-4BCD-AEA9-1FBC23A585E4.jpeg


Is a super sweet book if anyone is interested in motors and windings and repairs etc. @Susquatch will note that it used to belong to the Chatham Public library and my lovely mom bought it for me for $1.50 when it was going for scrap after the new editions came in (se was a librarian there for several years). The book covers lots of repairs, trouble shooting etc including rewinding motors and is a single book double volume. - excellent resource.
 
It makes no sense to me other than a broken winding. The headlight was very dim on that coil, and was bright on the others. Makes sense with 34 ohms in the circuit. But after I hooked the coil directly to the battery, the high resistance went away, and as a double check, the bulb is now bright and it's back to 1 ohm. No way can I trust it, or any of the other 73 year old wiring. If i can get a new 3.5ish KW servo off my bud for a good deal, and a drive, thats the way i'm going, as of right now. The servo has massive torque at like 1rpm all the way up to 3000rpm. No backgear needed, so much easier swap.
 
ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! You guys talked me into giving it a shot anyways. Everything is bought, so might as well eh. I have nothing to lose.

Tested the winding again this morning, and it stayed at 1 ohm despite wiggling wires and banging the housing with a mallet. So I don't know wtf happened after i fed it the juice...but it seems to have fixed itself. Maybe it was all the cussing and praying?

Had a bit of time to kill later today after I had a cancellation in the shop so i started making up the starter box. It will house the start and run caps, the potential relay and a terminal strip. The L1/L2 hot wires from the main contactor will come into this box, then go out to the motor/generator's single phase converted three phase motor. The box is an old alarm box i found at the dump. The potential relay will disconnect the start cap when the motor is up to speed.

It will have to be remotely mounted as access is needed for fine tuning the cap values later, if it doesn't all erupt into a massive fireball first
 

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Hey @Darren - do you guys have a thermal imaging camera at work? You can run up your MG set and check for any hot spots. Add some load and see if anything goes hot relative to other windings?

We are on the way to Thunder Bay right now - just out of the locks and into White Fish Bay. Eta tomorrow afternoon. Crap part (as I relayed to @ShawnR ) is we are still f’n Covid locked so I cannot visit. - argh! All I can do is poke a stick through the fence again. :mad:

Anyway I will let ya know when we tie up and the schedule.
 
I do have a thermal imaging camera here. Unfortunately the windings are completely buried in the housing. I ran it for 20 minutes or so, and everything seems ok. None of the 12 leads were even warm. But next time I run it I will take some shots with the thermal image gun.

Too bad you can sneak away for a beer or 6!
 
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Darren said:
IT'S ALIVE!

Click to expand...

Awesome stuff there Darren. It's been quite the ride for you. Especially those two motor idiots and the two motor whisperers. Quite the contrast between those guys.

Glad you hung in there, glad you got it going, hope you are happy, and last but not least, VERY IMPRESSED!

Watch out for @Brent H and his sticks in the fence.......
 
Next up is the single phase conversion of my new air compressor. This one came to me without a pressure switch or mag starter. I'll be installing a new 5hp single phase motor on this one.

Looks like they had issues with the centrifugal unloader so they scrapped it. My new pressure switch has an unloader. My buddy was contracted to replace it. It spent its life powering an air operated overhead door in some government shop. Should be a good compressor for my shop. It's 80 gallon, 28cfm@175 psi.

Last pic is my current compressor that i will be selling after this one is up and running.
 

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Susquatch said:
Awesome stuff there Darren. It's been quite the ride for you. Especially those two motor idiots and the two motor whisperers. Quite the contrast between those guys.

Glad you hung in there, glad you got it going, hope you are happy, and last but not least, VERY IMPRESSED!

Watch out for @Brent H and his sticks in the fence.......
Click to expand...

Thanks! the reason the video is so short is because I almost started yelling and dancing. Pretty happy moment!
 
Alright, compressor is up and running like a champ. Had to fabricobble in a new check valve. That was probably the original unloader problem. The unloader would unload until the pressure switch kicked in. Of course its NLA, so i put an inline valve in.

Now I can sell the other compressor and free up some space. In order to really test the compressor, I started sanding down the 10ee. It handles the 6" DA sander easily.

I think that in every big project there comes a point where you ask yourself: "WTF were you thinking???"

I am at that point with the 10ee
 

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I have a Devilbiss just like yours . It was in my auto repair shop when I bought the shop in 1980 and has been working great till now. Recently retired so it doesn't get used like it used to but you should be very happy with your compressor. I think I changed oil in mine 2 times in 40 yrs ( I know, I know) but it just keeps on like it was new.
 
Compressor has been running steady every day for a two months now. Had to order some belts for it as they are pretty dry rotted. Should be a bit quieter after, but its working great.
 
I apologize for the big breaks in the action. I quit my job in February, and went fulltime in my own shop doing automotive repair. I also do small excavation/bobcat services on the side for a few of my contractor buddies who i also do fleet work for. So been very busy, yet less busy at the same time. Working for yourself is the best. I'd never go back to dealership life.

Anyways, I bought another lathe, because 3 lathes in the shop is an odd number, I clearly don't have enough irons in the fire, and lathe number 4 was a nice little Standard Modern early series 2000 11x20.

I don't know the history on it, but it was clearly from a school. Its 0.75hp, 3 phase. It seems to be be in good shape, so likely it will get a VFD rewire and a cleaning, a few minor repairs and it will be up for sale.

Has anyone messed with the cross slide screw on this particular machine? How is the screw endplay adjusted? not the screw/nut play, that seems ok, but the cross slide screw itself has endplay. I hope to find time to look at it soon.

Pics soon
 
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