Member postings for Bob

Hi Maximiser

PM sent

Bob

Hi Baz

I do recall that Camden delt with a lot of Village Press publications including Live Steam but have looked at their websire today with no joy.

Looking for a UK source of back issues of Live Steam magazine, Particularly March/April and May/June 2005. Available in US but postage is prohibitively expensive.

Bob

The BT30 to Morse No.2 adaptor arrived today. Fits perfectly! No problem with passage of drawbar. Many thanks to all who took the time to respond to my question and especially Ketan and the staff at ARCEurotrade. Excellent service.

Bob

Ketan Many thanks for taking the time to check the adaptors. The BT30 to Morse No.2 adaptor looks ideal.

Michael I did look at the links you posted and there are indeed four threaded holes in the drive face of the mill spindle. It seems to me to be a lot of work to make a custom adaptor that would still require the Int 30 taper to ensure centralisation of the tooling when 'off the shelf' solutions are available. I think the drive flange on the Int30 taper would partially obscure the four holes so they are not ideally positioned to hold the tooling in place.

Bob

There is not a lot of clearance between the top of the Morse taper and the start of the slot in the adaptor that the tang engages with. As you suggest a (very) shallow hex flange might be OK, I also consedered making a short length of 3/8" BSW internally threaded M6 and with a screwdriver slot that would allow the insert to be retrieved if it fully entered the Morse taper.

Adaptor from ARC already on order!

Bob

Just to clarify things.

The mill (A Fritz Werner 2.202 with matching vertical head) has a removable drawbar. It will accommodate a 1/2" BSW threaded drawbar which I use with my Int 30 Clarkson Autolock chucks. I have various pieces of tooling including a Lytton Automatic boring and facing head, a Lussington boring head and Arrand flycutter all of which are No.2 Morse taper. None of these have tangs on their tapers. The Morse taper tooling has provision for 3/8" BSW drawbar.

I have an adaptor that converts a Int 30 spindle to Morse No.2. It is designed to take tanged fittings like drill chucks and Morse taper drills. It is open all the way through but the biggest thread that will sensibly pass through is M6.

I have made a bar with a short length of 3/8" BSW thread (short enough that it will fully enter the thread of the end of the taper) internally tapped M6 so a M6 draw bar can be used. The threaded portion is Locktited on to the M6 studding so dropping the M6 drawbar through the rear of the adaptor is not an option.

You might think this is a solution to the problem, but it is not. Consider swapping between a collet chuck holding a 5/8" slot drill used to drill a hole that will subsequently be enlarged using the boring head. You need to change between the collet chuck and the boring head without disturbing the work you have carefully set up. Dropping the collet chuck is no problem as with the table lowered and the 1/2" BSW drawbar removed there is sufficient clearance to remove the Autolock. However, the problem come when you want to fit the boring head. If the adaptor is in place, it is just about possible to fit the boring head (with not boring bar installed at this stage) but the 'special M6 / 3/8" BSW drawbar must be installed 'from below. It will not go without 'flexing' the M6 drawbar.

The above is not a hypothetical situation; I have spent three days wrestling with it.

All that is really required is an adaptor Int 30 on the outside and bored Morse No.2 on the inside. Ideally it should be optimised to minimise the excess stick out from the nose of the mill. I used to have a similar adaptor that allowed Int 30 tooling to be used in Int 40 sockets.

Bob

Many thanks to all who replied to my question. I will buy the Arceurotrade item as this seems to be the thing I need. I was sure I had seen similar before but could not remember where.

The boring head in question is a Lytton Automatic Boring and Facing Head. As far as I can determine the Morse taper shank is integral with the body of the head. I also have various odds and end of Morse No. 2 tooling by Arrand and Lussington so it is worth my while sorting this out.

Personally speaking I would not rely on the Morse taper without a draw bar especially when interrupted cuts are envisioned such as typical when fly cutting.

Bob

I have a mill with an Int 30 vertical head that I want to use some of my existing Morse No 2 taper tooling (specifically boring heads) with. I have an adaptor but the flats that engage with the tang of the Morse taper interfer with the drawbar. I want an adaptor that is clear bored to allow 3/8 BSW draw bar to pass through and engage with the threads in the end of the Morse No. 2 boring head

Altenatively I want a soft adaptor that I could modify to suit.

Any ideas where I might obtain such an item?

Bob

Many thanks Bill. I have never come across these symbols before and they are not very intuitive. I guess the semicircle is meant to represent a hard hat that would be worn on a construction site.

Bob

I agree that the two overlapping circles with the the two downward pointing 'legs' represent an isolation transformer but what does the enclosing semicircle signify?

What does this symbol indicate?

Hi All

Have I got a rogue copy or is there a more general problen with the pagination of the current issue of ME? My copy jumps from page 194 to page 203, then at page 210 a second copy of the pages 203 to 210. The problem is repeated across the centrfold with pages 219 to 226 missing.

Bob

Many thanks for all your carefully considered replies. My immediate feeling is to ask for just a "cross hair" mark to be engraved to mark the hole locations. Then centre pop and drill the holes conventionally. As Interchangeability is not an issue in my work I will probably locate matching holes using the first component to locate the holes in the second. Regarding the hole sizes I would want to tap M2 in 3 mm thick plate and really would not want to contend with hard crusty stuff.

Bob

What options exist for locating small holes in laser cut mild steel. I am thinking in particular of holes less than the thickness of the material and holes which are to be threaded. I would expect to have to drill the holes to get the size.

Bob

Hi Andy

I have a manual for Fritz Werner Type 2.211E & 2.211D, Milling Machine, Instructions Manual (1951) this is a different machine to the 2.210. Unless you brought your machine from a chap in North Wales then I know that there are at least 3 similar machines in the Principality. Have a look at this link **LINK** There is a very nice picture of a partially restored machine about half way down the thread.

I suspect there are even more in the UK as the chap I brought mine from in Sussex has another one and a few years ago there was one on ebay as part of a workshop clearance (together with a Smart and Brown Model A Mk 2 lathe. Both machines repainted in a pale cream livery.

Is the vertical head on your machine jammed full of thick grease?

Bob

Hi Andy/Michael

I think the Fritz Werner company you link to are munitions manufacturers. The machine tool part of the business is now an Indian company. Enquiries to the Indian company Bharat Fritz Werner ( **LINK** have drawn a blank for information regarding my old mill. Likewise Rockwell (London) who originally supplied the machine have no records of the machine either.

(Internet searches for Fritz Werner generally pull up more information about the German conductor/composer Fritz Werner rather than the machine tool manufacturer.)

I remain interested in any information regarding older Fritz Werner.

Bob

Hi Manny/John

I understand the way VFDs convert the incoming supply to DC before synthesising the three phase output. I have found various information regarding running 400 V converters on supplies other than true three phase. Some authors suggest derating the VFD (by up to 50%) for rotary converter supply. Jim Cox in his book on Electric Motors (2nd ed. Workshop Practice Series) states that some VFD manufacturers accept that their product can be powered in unorthodox ways, for example using an autotransformer to step up a 240 V single phase supply to 480 V single phase, whilst others expressly forbid it.

Reading the manufacture's handbook (Control Techniques) I can find no mention of 400 V class drives being capable of running from single phase supply, but they do produce 200 V class drives that can be run from either single or three phase supplies.

The only reference I can find in the handbook is a statement that:

"(Input) phase imbalance not to exceed 2% negative phase sequence"

What sort of phase imbalance might I expect from a rotary inverter?

I have also noted that if an input phase is lost the drive will trip out and report the PH trip code. This suggests to me that the VFD should not destroy itself if supplied from the rotary converter, but it might trip out. The VFD is rated at 4 kW and since my motor is rated at 1.2/1.6 kW depending on its configuration I think the VFD is very conservatively rated.

Bob

Hi Ian

Sorry to open up an old thread.

You seem to have a similar situation to mine. I own a Fritz Werner mill with a 2 speed 3 phase motor, but only have 240 VAC single phase supply. The machine has some 'interesting' control gear including a tachogenerator and a bank of resistors that look like electric fire elements, I have been led to believe that these are part of a soft start system.

My proposed solution is a 2.2 kw rotary converter which I plan to use to drive a Control Techniques Commander SE drive. This drive is rated at 4 kw. I have selected this drive because it offers the option of having two selectable sets of motor parameters. The manufacture's intention was that this would allow the drive to run two different motors (only one at a time). In their handbook CT shows the set up with a contactors located between the drive and the two motors. my reading of this is that it is not the presence of switchgear between the drive and the motor that destroys drives, rather it is the action of operating the switch whilst the drive is energised that is damaging to the drive.

So my plan is to use the existing rotary switch to handle the change over from 8 pole to 4 pole configuration. I will add a mechanical lock to prevent the switch being moved to either the off or the reversed position. I will then select either motor 1 or motor 2 on the drive and use the drive normally to control the motor (soft start, speed and direction)

I know this looks to be an expensive solution, but I can also use the rotary converter to power my Smart and Brown lathe that currently labours using a retrofitted 2 HP single phase motor. Luckily I still have the original three phase motor for the lathe.

Have you any updates on running your Deckel from a single phase 240 VAC supply?

Bob

Hi All

I am planning to run an old (1950s) Fritz Werner mill from a 240 V single phase supply. The motor is two speed 710/1430 rpm and rated at 1.2/1.6 kw 415 V 50 Hz.

I have a 2.2 kw rotary phase converter and a selection of 400 volt VFDs including a 4 kw drive.

I would like to take advantage of the speed control and soft start facility that the VFD offers. I plan to use the RPC to produce the necessary 3 phase 415 V to supply the VFD.

The reason for not wanting to connect the mill directly to the RPC is the original control circuits are not in good shape and there seems to be some damage to the original soft start system that appears to involve a switched bank of power resistors.

Has anybody any experience of this type of system or running dual speed motors from VFDs. It is interesting that the larger VFD I already own has a dual motor option that allows the drive to be connected to two different motors as long as only one motor is run at any time. This seems very similar to switching between a 4 pole and 8 pole configuration of a single dual speed motor.

Bob