Member postings for wotsit

Hi, Dave,

Apperently there is a CI 9 three pole contact breaker made by Danfoss (not C19). There is a connection diagram in their documentation Here

You can download the PDF User Guide (last document in the list of 4) This contains a circuit diagram of the switch, although it does not seem to correspond exactly to what you have described. The unit at the side appears to be a Thermal overload trip.

Perhaps you can take a look at it, and see if it corresponds to your switch. I would disconnect the connections to Terminals 3 (connection to Start button) and 4 (the loop) of the main switch. This should leave you with a simple switch, operated by your hatched bar. If that seems OK, then the User guide should help you to reconnect the thermal overload.

As Les Jones said earlier, it looks as though somehow it has been connected so as to put the supply voltage directly across the thermal switch hence your sparks and smoke. Any information you have would help - can you post a sketch of the connections between switch and motor? Did the green 'Start' button ever work? Did anything happen at the time it stopped working - and most important - has anyone 'fixed' it since it failed (and maybe changed a connection! )

Les,

Thanks for the info - but this forum software is so bad that I cannot be bothered to try it - I do this for pleasure, not penance, and if the site owners cannot get off their a****s and sort it out so it is easy to use, then I can't be bothered either - but thanks for your input.

I agree with you about the other connections on the switch, but without more information, we are just guessing. I don't want to be responsible for electrocuting the guy, all I am trying to do is point out a way to go. As I have already pointed out, Danfoss has a technical advice service, and excellent documentation on their site, so it makes sense to look there. (I have no connection to Danfoss).

It seems this is a variation on the old 'Instructions? Wwhat instructions? - Oh,  I never read them, they're always too complicated!

Edited By wotsit on 25/04/2012 13:05:24

Edited By wotsit on 25/04/2012 13:09:58

Dave,

Without knowing the switch type, it is hard to be 100% sure, but I think you have a 3-pole switch (1 to 2, 3 to 4, 5 to 6). This fits with your labelling, connecting live and neutral to the motor, but the connections to 3 and 4 are a bit harder to identify. I cannot identify the green operating 'unit' - according to Danfoss, this could be undervoltage or overcurrent protection, or even a separate auxiliary 'add-on' contact. If it is a 3-pole switch, then the connection from 3, through the green start button, and the loop 2-4 do not seem to be strictly necessary, and the switch would work simply by pressing the 'hatched' bar.

Sorry if this is confusing - this is why I strongly suggest looking for a type number on the switch. If you search for it on the Danfoss site, nearly all their products have a downloadable PDF tech sheet, which shows connection details.

Failing that, they also have a technical assistance department to answer online queries about their products - even an expert would need technical details to correctly identify connections.

Hi, Stephen,

Tcih drawings were published in ME Vol 205 Nos. 4381 (July 2-15 2010), 4384, 4385, 4386, 4388 and 4389. (12 Sheets altogether)

Hi, Dave,

The Danfoss Website has some technical information for contactor breakers which appear to be similar to your drawing - If you cannot get any local help, perhaps you can identify your contactor breaker type, and take a look at their technical information. This link takes you to the site.

http://www.danfoss.com/United_Kingdom/BusinessAreas/IndustrialAutomation/Products/Literature/IA/Contactors-and-Motor-Starters/Circuit-breakers/CTI-15-Circuit-breakers/93f725b4-0729-40ca-94e6-3a87d792cf52.html

Sorry if this long link b*****s up the text/adverts - I can't be bothered to work out how to use a shorter link in this terrible software - lifes too short..

Deleted multiple post - sorry

Edited By wotsit on 20/04/2012 20:17:06

Deleted multiple post - sorry

Edited By wotsit on 20/04/2012 20:17:34

For some reason I got four posts of the same message - sorry, I deleted the extra ones.

Edited By wotsit on 20/04/2012 20:18:28

I have an (old) German made 2-wheel bandsaw, which had what seemed to be hard plastic or nylon tyres. They were also breaking away, and where I live, there was no chance of easily shopping for replacement parts. After lots of experiments, I eventually ended up with tyres glued in place, made from hard leather. I thought this would be only a short term solution for the immediate job in hand, expecting the slight offset on the blade teeth to simply rip the leather up. However, they have now been in fairly heavy use for about a year, (Been building a sailing dinghy with it) and although showing signs of 'cutting up', they are still 'good to go' for a while yet (and I have half a cowhide to replace them when they do! ).

The original tyres did have a slight 'dome', and I had no way to replicate this with the leather tyres, but they work anyway, so I agree with Chris about that. I suspect the blade is sinking into the leather slightly, so they are acting a bit like pulleys with rims. It was cheap - I picked up the hide for next to nothing on our local market, and used impact adhesive to secure it.

Coalburner,

As you say, I can choose to reveal as much or as little as I want - I already made my choice, for the reasons stated.

Ian,

What business is it of anyone on the forum what I am, whether 'spotty teenager, politician, brain surgeon, or just a crank'? And why should a wish for privacy be verging on 'paranoia'? This is no reason for not using the Internet. It seems that every time someone raises a potential warning about something, one is accused of 'paranoia' and told one should not use it. Might as well say 'why are you breathing, when so much pollution is about'. The Internet exists, and unfortunately there are many clowns who think it is clever to steal and/or misuse information circulating on it - I choose not to provide that information wherever possible. I would be interested in your comments when you become a victim of Internet intrusion.

Clive has pointed out some of the pitfalls of various areas of the web - this is not 'paranoia' - just sensible.

As for rudeness - there has been at least one thread (I believe) on this forum that resulted in the Moderator deleting large chunks of it. There was also a recent thread in which a contributor announced his intention to make no more contributions to the forum.

While I appreciate Ians motives, there are two reasons I will never provide any profile data in a forum like this - one is the sheer rudeness of some of the answers which have appeared in this forum in the past, so I don't want to provide any information. The second is the proven insecurity of the Internet.

If this results in a lack of response or accuracy to any posts I may make, then so be it. If people need to contact me, or I need to contact them, then it can be done using the private message service in the forum, without making the information public. (or at least with slightly better security)

Ian SC -

I would agree with you that if you have to make the toothed pulleys, then its a lot of work - However, as I noted in an earlier post on this thread, I found the belt and matching toothed pulleys for around 20 pounds sterling when I did my mod (see earlier post) - they are probably around 25 pounds nowadays. (I gave the source in my original post, so you can check if you wish). In contrast, Johns last post says (quote)...I've had an email today from Beeline. They can't supply the belt themselves, but have quoted (a fairly reasonable) just over £20 for a belt to be sent direct from the USA. Reasonable? - outrageous IMO!

My bits came from Germany (I lived there at the time), but I guess postage from Germany to UK will not be considerably greater than from the US of A.

I would also doubt that a sewing machine belt will have a long useful life (my toothed belt has been going five years now, with a hard life) - Modern sewing machine motors are typically around 100 Watts (my wifes Bernina is 90W), whereas the miller has a 450 Watt motor (actually probably a bit less than that), and I know some of these machines have been fitted with a uprated motor.

I have stalled my mill many times, (OK, no-one is perfect ), yet the belt has survived. Stalling the machine is why the original gears broke, and led to the belt drive mod. I wouldn't give you odds on a sewing machine belt lasting for long - unless you are one of these engineers who only use their machines for posed photos, with no swarf in sight .. A point to consider is that a major reason for changing to belt drive is to eliminate a gear which seems to be too weak and eventually breaks -so why use a belt which may be even weaker? and on top of that, as this thread is clearly showing, some of the suggested belts are either hard to source at all, or only available from a single source - yet toothed belts with a known performance are available from multiple sources.

Manufacturers of belts of any kind often quote the power their products are capable of transmitting, but I could not find this data for our sewing machine. I don't think it can be very high - it is made of transparent material, and clearly does not contain any fibre thread or carbon fibre or any other reinforcing medium - I'll stick to my toothed belt, that at least is intended to transmit reasonable power, and my (cheap) toothed pulleys.

As almost everyone has noted, if this system was ever used, it was 'old' or 'early' designs - ask yourself why it is not still in use?

Never saw one of these heaters in 35 years residence in Germany, and fitted several 'instantaneous' heaters myself in rented apartments in Germany - of course, this is no evidence that they do not exist.

Very strange statement from geechr - The products are safe because the design makes sure the electrical current, flowing from the bare wire heater to earth, is so low that it is safe. The whole point of any 'safe' system is that current is kept to a 'safe' level - the problem is, how do you ensure that? - a simple wire becomes lethal if it carries too much current (overheats, insulation melts, etc, etc) - so how do you guarantee that the current is kept low under all conditions - including potential faults? Surely no-one deliberately designs things so it is not safe (on second thoughts....) Seems like a good reason to me for not using this system.

As for 'strategically placed earth contacts....' - presumably both at the same potential, so no current flow?

Some interesting design possibilities though......

Hi, John,

As you say, most of the mods use a toothed belt - I am a little surprised at your reason for using a v-belt - why do you think a toothed belt drive would be any more complicated than a V-belt?

As you are seeing in this forum, although V-belts, round belts, etc are available, they are no easier to find than toothed belts. One point I found when I did my mod was that the primary drive pulley (in my case) was fairly small, to achieve the necessary 'gear' ratio - the matching toothed belts easily fitted round this pulley. I'm sure V-belts are available for small pulleys, but I suspect they are not so easily available at low cost, like toothed belts.

HI, Ray,

Didn't post earlier - your post must have dropped off the list before I got there, and today I was browsing, and saw no-one had replied.

I had a similar problem - I didn't find a 'bulk solution) but I put several nuts on a long 6BA bolt, which made it easier to hold, then polished them on a small polishing wheel to do the sides. To polish the ends, I locknutted two nuts near the end of a bolt leaving about 3mm of the bolt thread exposed, then put the nut I wanted to clean on the end. Then I could use the bolt as a sort of handle to hold it against the polishing wheel. I tried both polishing compo and metal polish on the wheel, but both gave about the same finished result.

I realise this is probably not the best way, and it can be a bit rough on the fingers. (gets hot if you polish for too long) - I only had about 30 nuts/bolts to do - I think I would make a couple of small holders if I had to do more. I did find that a polishing wheel gave me a good finish (provided the nuts were not badly corroded).

I find it very hard to believe that instant water heaters can result in 'live' water - how does this work then? It would be interesting to see the internals of such a heater described. If this is so, then even the original fitting (plastic?) would not reduce the lethal capabilties of such a machine - or do you work for the Health and Safety Alarm and Despondancy Department.

John,

I have a Sieg Mill which I converted to belt drive, using the original motor - the main reason was to eliminate the risk of the plastic primary drive gear breaking (I broke two), and to reduce noise from the gear .

I found some information about making this kind of mod on an american website, but it drove directly to the main shaft, rather than the intermediate gear shaft. This also required the direction of rotation of the motor to be changed. The author claimed this gave him more than enough power. I tried this, but found it did not give me sufficent power for some purposes, but it did show that the (internal) gear reduction did not contribute a great deal of noise. The toothed pulleys and belt I used for this came from the German company Conrad, who do a fairly wide range of pulleys and belts. I was concerned about the power transmission capability, but practical experience has shown this was unfounded.

My mod was very simple, and did not require any permanent changes to the machine, which means I can restore the original configuration if necessary. The casting on top of the head which supports the motor was simply removed, and an aluminium plate supported on small spacers used instead. This plate was drilled to accept the motor, and to clear the top of the spindle. The same mounting holes were used as on the original. A small toothed pulley was bored out and fitted to the motor in place of the small primary gear, and a larger pulley fitted on the intermediate drive shaft. I selected pulleys to give me as near as possible the same ratio as the gears but still fit in the space available - there was just sufficient clearance. Some shim washers and counterboring of these pulleys were necessary to get clearances, but nothing difficult - the whole mod took less than one day to make and install. No change of motor direction is required, and the motor is retained in almost the same position as the original, and does not require offsetting to one side to allow a long belt (as I have seen since I did my mod). I also still have the slow/fast gearbox speed selection. The drive ration is not exactly as original, because there was not quite enough space to get a large enough pulley on the spindle, but is slightly higher geared - given that the mill has speed control, I still have more than enough speed range for all I have ever needed.

This has now been in steady use for about five years, and I am still on the same drive belt. (I bought two, because I was worried about it, and still have one in its packing). The machine is quite a lot quieter - I can run it for long periods without annoying myself or anyone else. ITs probably my imagination, but it aslo seems to run much more smoothly, and cuts appear to be smoother - I have't done any real testing for 'improvements' of this kind, as this was not my original concern - I can only say it is at least as good as the original configuration.

I can't remember exact prices, but if I remember correctly, the pulleys and belt cost about 20 Euros at the time (probably more now), The ally mounting plate came from my 'odds and sods' collection, as did half a dozen allen-head bolts to mount it all.

Conrad has a large website, the search facilties are better in German, but the site can be read in English - toothed belts (zahnreimen) and pulleys (zahnschieben) are at:

http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/category/SHOP_AREA_32457/Zahnriemen-Keilriemen

Conrad have an excellent mail - order service (no connection - only a very satisfied customer for more than 30 years).

I am sure these pulleys/belts could be obtained in England - maybe HPC gears in Chesterfield

There is some info on these sites:-

http://warhammer.mcc.virginia.edu/ty/7x10/vault/Mills/G8689-MiniMill/Projects-Mods/DriveBeltMod/MillBeltMod.html

http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_mill/Reviews/Belt_drv/belt_drv.htm

There are links on these sites to other mill belt mods (and other mods)

Edited By wotsit on 01/04/2012 21:16:59

Hi, Ian,

If they are all different threads, I would suggest measuring the size of the largest, then all the knobs could be made to (say) the next largest metric size - then you would simply need to drill the slide bars out and tap the same size - I suggest metric because nowadays they are easy to obtain from DIY stores. it should be fairly easy with brass - a hand drill would be OK.

You can send me a private e-mail using the 'Message Member' function at the bottom of your latest post. It would help if you can send a dimensioned sketch.

I live in Romania, but there is no problem to send half a dozen bits back to UK if I make them - postage charges here are negligible compared to UK.

Keith.

Hi, Ian,

Is the knob you are referring to the one slightly to the left of centre of the brass lock shown in your photo - can you confirm it is screwed into the sliding part? If so, do you know what thread is used, because if you get the knobs made, this thread will also have to be cut correctly, otherwise they will not fit correctly. I would assume from the age of the lock that the thread will probably not be metric, but one of the many types of thread used in those days. It would also be good to know the length of this thread, unless you are able to cut it yourself. If it is not threaded, how is the knob attached to the slide - rivetted over? or what.

Apart from that, they seem fairly simple, and should not involve much work - how many do you need?

Hi, Colin,

Some more info - try googling 'identifying brass and bronze' - ther is some useful info there, e.g http://eurekaifoundit.us/antique/metals.html