And now I have a milling machine

[SkinnyG]

Why am I buying the fancy tools now, after the car is built??

It is essentially a Grizzly 3102, but either a copy, or from the supplier. Not terribly worried - I got a screaming deal on it. It came with a handful of cutters, chuck, vice, and (surprise) a 3-phase motor. So.... Looking for a VFD for it.

DSC00949.jpg

[Off Road SHO]

If you can find a 3 phase motor, you can convert it into a rotary phase converter. That is what came with my mills and it works great. I'm not an electrician but from what I can deduce from looking at the wiring, if you feed 220v single phase into a 3 phase motor, the motor will then output the "wild" leg that you need in 3 phase. I think. I sure there are some electrical type guys here that will chime in.

Practical Machinist and MetalMeet are two great forums with lots of great guys on them.

If you ever get a lathe, hit me up for some cutting inserts; I got a great deal on thousands of them.

Tom

[BrianG701]

I also recommend a rotary phase converter, thats what I have and with the 10hp motor on my converter I can run both the mill and the lathe at the same time, if I only had a clone......
Very nice find on the mill, looks like it will handle what ever you throw at it. What is the table size on it?

[zetec7]

Here I am...drooling. The best I've been able to do is a milling attachment for my lathe, for small parts only so far (I'm thinking of adapting a small milling vice onto the face of the attachment to increase the size of the work it will handle).

Anyway, Greg, GOOD SCORE, MAN!!!

[SkinnyG]

What is the table size on it?

It's 6 x 26". 2HP motor.

[maxlessca]

You can also use an inverter, if you can find one used for a low enough price. They are used in industry to control 3 Phase motors from a PLC, but they can also be used as a stand alone device. They are capable of taking a single phase input, and producing a 3 phase output. The only ones I've had experience with are Allen Bradley PowerFlex Inverters:

[rapt]

2 hp is within reasonable range of replacing the motor with 1PH, perhaps the easiest way to go. I would add at least a half horse if I did that because the 3PH has more oomph.

[dhempy]

If you go with an electronic phase converter (inverter?) instead of a rotary converter, you can get speed control out of it. I don't know much about it, but my instructor uses them on his 3-phase Bridgeport at home. He can control speed from the inverter, instead of changing the gearing. This will be handy on your belt-driven Grizzlish, as changing speeds is slightly annoying. (I have the same mill (single phase) and I love it!) His unit also runs the motor *backward* when he hits stop on the inverter, so the spindle stops in a few seconds, as opposed to spinning down for many seconds.

I don't actually know much about converters, but encourage you to do some research. He said they come up on ebay pretty cheap from time to time.

-dave

[SkinnyG]

I just ordered a Teco FM50-202-C ($144) from http://www.dealerselectric.com

They don't ship to Canada, but I use a receiving company in Oroville WA, and bring it across the border myself.

I also ordered an FM50-201-C ($118) for my lathe, as I have a 3-phase motor for it in a box, and the variable speed thing will be REALLY nice since the installed gear head speeds suck.

http://dealerselectric.com/item.asp?PID=761

Funny thing, as soon as I ordered, the -202 was gone from their site. Maybe I got the last one?

We'll see in a couple weeks if it all works out. Nice to get this puppy running soon.

[sevenesqueron]

Nice find, and a real step up from the glorified drill press types. Having the keyway column and vertical adjustment on the table is a real plus. Colour me green with envy

Ron

[1960L7]

I am running a bridgeport J series 1.5hp on an American Rotary 10hp converter. I also use it to run a 5 hp takisawa lathe and some and a 5 hp grinder. It is nice to have 3-phase power that i can plug anything into, and the machines work the way the were intended to. I have also had varying success on VFD's. I ran an older milling machine on one and it fried the motor...Something about voltage spikes and the old wire can't handle it. I ended up getting rid of the mill because replacing the motor was too timeconsuming and expensive. I guess the small VFD's work on newer motors fine. If you are interested in a Rotary I can recommend http://www.americanrotary.com They are very knowlegable and reasonably priced.

D

[oldejack]

we use allen bradley vfd's on the fedex conveyors with great success, the motors range from 1 up to 20 hp and have huge ratio gear reductions on them(as much as 100 to 1 and thats followed by a chain reduction as well ). haven't had to replace one yet, knock on wood, but they seems to work a lot better than some of the others i've seen. kohl's (for example) uses really crappy ones but i disremember the brand (probably on purpose for mental health ).

just my 0.0152 euro. ..

[SkinnyG]

Mill is hooked up and now running. The Teco FM50 manual leaves something to be desired - it's thorough, but probably written by engineers. Once you figure it out, it's actually REALLY easy to hook up and program. I programmed a "jog" button to run it really slow for a bit without losing your spindle speed setting. Also programmed an Emergency Stop switch because I like that sort of thing. I will likely move the power switch up high later on, but right now it's fine.

The fancy fwd-off-rev switch I bought from Princess Auto wasn't working quite right (surprize!), or the way I expected (surprize!), so like a fool I took it apart. Don't do that. It was an awful experience trying to figure out how to put the switch back together. Works great now.

[ssuperflyoldguy]

Hey Skinny G - I have a Harbor Freight mill with that same switch I believe - where did you get your switch? I've been trying to find a replacement (and wiring diagram) since we got it - someone took it apart (surprise) and abandoned it - we could really use this tool - Thanx

[SkinnyG]

It's an "Electric Motor Reversing Switch" from Princess Auto (#8000790 $23).

It's made in China (surprise) and carries part number ZH-HC-3. I Googled and found a pdf document on it (http://www.kedu.cn/PDF/5/p45-52%28zh-hc ... %A1%A3.pdf) but it really only gave the pin outs (which didn't make sense to me) rather than an exploded assembly drawing.

I ended up getting it back together (took 2 or 3 hours of studying the multitude of cams, springs and contacts inside), though I'm sure it's no longer giving the designed pin outs. Doesn't matter. It's in now and working.

edit: On the other hand, having "rebuilt" ~two~ switches now (one for the lathe), if you have all (and I mean ALL) the parts of yours, you could mail it to me and I could reassemble it for you.