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Single phase to 3 phase conversion on Modern GH1440W lathe

I agree John. Teco has built in overheat protection measured at the IGBT heat sink. If the temp gets too high the programed response is to lower the carrier frequency to 4 K HZ.

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It looks like Huanyang allows carrier frequency as high as 20K HZ on some models but the factory default must be quite low because mine sure makes alot of noise. I'm going to check what it is and raise it to 10.

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Ok I just went out to the mill with the Huanyang VFD and checked parameter pd041 which is the carrier frequency. It was set at 3 which as you can see in manual page above = 2K HZ. I increased it to 10 which = 10K HZ. What a difference! The noise is gone. Wish I'd know about this years ago. Tomorrow I will make a before and after video and see if the noise difference can be heard on the vid.
 
That is a cool feature that automatically lowers the PWM frequency as the heat goes up.

It is unlikely that most hobby lathes would have overheating problems anyway, even at high frequencies. The current through the IGBT's (proportional to the heat) is also proportional to the amount of load you have on the motor. It might be a 3HP motor that will draw maybe 10-15 amps through 3 phases at 220V. It would only draw that much power if you were doing extremely heavy cuts. Most times you would be loading it down much less than that and using less than 1 HP with less than a third of the current and a third of the heat build up in the VFD..

I actually run a 5HP 3-phase motor motor on a 5HP rated VFD, except I'm only feeding the 3-phase rated VFD with single phase (220V split phase actually), so it needs to be de-rated to about 3HP. I've never had a problem. I've probably almost never used more than 2HP.

The VFD's are pretty durable with over current, over voltage and over temperature safety sensors. It will almost certainly shut itself down before it is damaged from too high a load. You can usually set some of the safety parameters to lower values for some extra protection.
 
I received the fan and enclosure from Amazon so I moved the lathe away from the wall again. The difference this time was I used my new toe jack to lift the machine high enough to get the skates under it. Instead of an hour it took 5 minutes to get it moved away from the wall. The box is 6 X 9 inches and 3 inches deep and the fan is 120mm by 30mm and powered by 120 volts, this thing moves alot of air. I mounted the box to the rear motor cover and mounted the fan to the lid. I ran 120 volt power from the transformer and mounted a switch in the box with the vfd. The fan grill has not arrived yet but will be easy to install when it does. I plan to use the fan in hot weather or when working the lathe hard.

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After using the lathe far a week since the conversion I am extremely happy with it. As Sherman T. Potter would say, there are not enough O's on smooth to describe it.
 
I did almost exactly the same thing for my VFD'd motor. Great minds obviously think alike!
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My fan is a very powerful 24V unit (from an old IBM mainframe) powered by an old 20V laptop supply. It is powered by a small relay that is connected to one of the VFD outputs. I programmed the VFD to turn the fan on whenever there is power to the motor. the fan blows on to the side of the motor.
 
John, I probably should have used the RA and RB terminals of the VFD and programed it like that but after hearing the fan I decided to make it manually controlled.

Thanks Peter. I'm really liking the variable speed function, I was getting some chatter while parting off a piece of stainless and was able to just dial down the speed a bit to correct it without stopping the cut. Very cool!

This social distancing is starting to wear on me. I went down to KMS to buy a 4 1/4" hole saw to cut the hole for the fan and I was the only person on the store except 2 staff, both behind plexiglass shields. Strange times!
 
Thanks for sharing your adventure with this project it has helped me more than you will know!!
I had the exact problem with my start capacitor on the exact same weekend as you and have been doing the same 3 phase conversion (with help from our local motor repair shop) and have been using it for a few days now and last night i was parting off just as you said in you previous post and the variable speed is awesome!!! I will never have a lathe without it again!!

I was keeping an eye on this thread and thinking how similar your situation is to mine and kind of chuckling to myself but when you posted about the parting off....chills went up my spine!!

I have even made a similar quick change tool holder rack to yours...

thanks for letting us in your shop!!
 
Hi John , this is pushing me to a project! Great work!

Quick question, how much of the stock relays/fuses/non-wire electrical parts did you reuse from the stock machine? Im pretty comfortable with the vid programming, but was wondering if you had to reuse any of the stock bits


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Thanks for sharing your adventure with this project it has helped me more than you will know!!
I had the exact problem with my start capacitor on the exact same weekend as you and have been doing the same 3 phase conversion (with help from our local motor repair shop) and have been using it for a few days now and last night i was parting off just as you said in you previous post and the variable speed is awesome!!! I will never have a lathe without it again!!

I was keeping an eye on this thread and thinking how similar your situation is to mine and kind of chuckling to myself but when you posted about the parting off....chills went up my spine!!

I have even made a similar quick change tool holder rack to yours...

thanks for letting us in your shop!!


Wow, weird coincidences! Are you going to post about your upgrade?
 
Kevin, in the picture of the original electrical panel the parts I salvaged from it are, the main contactor in the upper left, the 2 fuse holders in the upper right, the transformer in the lower right, the mounting plate with 1 strip of DIN rail, and the bus bar on the bottom. 1 fuse is for the 24 volt control circuit and the other for the 120 volt circuit for the DRO and the new fan. The second pic shows everything except the fuses.
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My wiring is not quite as neat and organised as the original. LoL I should have set up the entire panel on the bench instead of one piece at a time while it was mounted on the lathe. I didn't sit down and draw the schematic until it was finished. I didn't think it would look quite so chaotic when I was finished.
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The little orange gizmo on the laying on the bottom is the 120 to 12 volt power supply for the fan in the VFD enclosure.
 
Wow, weird coincidences! Are you going to post about your upgrade?

I had not really thought about that, to be honest I never took may pics mostly just wiring stuff as a way to remember where thing were. but i do have a couple of it together...
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the vfd mount was recommended by my motor repair guy he said in a home shop it will handle any dirt i will be making and the aluminum will help heat dissipation
That motor was fun to get in there!! you can see the tool holder rack in the last one
i mostly took these pictures to show what my lathe looks like clean, unfortunately i am not the guy that keeps it spotless
 
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