3 phase motor

Current mill motor single phase, probably 1 hp, but not plated.

Have an Assea 3phase .55Kw motor which I am thinking of using

in conjunction with a vfd. Will it cope? Mill only gets light use.

Would appreciate members input on the feasability of this.

Thanks, Lynne

I make .55kw to be just under 3/4 hp so might be OK for light use. (but I'm no expert)

Brian

It should be just fine, why do you think your current motor is 1 hp? Rarely will you be taking such a heavy cut that you actually need all the power.

You are replacing a 1 hp motor with one that is 3/4 hp, which as stated should be OK for anything except heavy cutting. But as you slow the motor speed down with the VFD, the power/torque of the motor will also reduce.

Paul.

Which is why you will still be using the pulleys for big cuts.

Another factor is the rated rpm of the motors. I have changed a 1425 rpm single phase to a 935 rpm three phase one, as the minimum lower speeds available would have been too high for larger drills and cutters. With the vfd set as I want it, the three phase motor will reach nearly 1400 rpm and go down to 467 rpm, which in conjunction with the four belt positions gives a better overall spread of power and speed. Remember, that a three phase motor on a VFD running at 25Hz is not only half the speed, but also half the power, and the power drops rapidly if the frequency is lowered further.

Old Mart has touched on an important point. The rpm of a three phase motor depends on the number of poles it has. To swap a single phase out and three phase in it is best to know the rpm of the current motor before assuming a straight swap will give the same resulting speed range.

The nominal speed of a 2 pole three phase motor at 50hz will be 3000rpm. Double the poles and it drops to 1500rpm, triple the poles and you get 1000rpm. It should be possible to get a suitable motor to swap in but it may not be the one you have.

Martin C

Three phase motors for small applications have up to 8 poles, the more poles, the slower the running, so with equal horsepower, the torque increases the slower the motor runs natively. The motor I bought has 6 poles, the 8 pole one was 50% more expensive.

This is the one I bought:**LINK**

Thanks to you all for getting back to me on this .

John, All I can say is that the motor is quite a lump and heavy, though that is probably down to the fact

that it all cast iron body. The mill is a Naerock RDM 350, and what bits of info. I have gathered over

time, does'nt give any info about the motor, so it could well be 1/2 or 3/4hp. I am going to have to take the motor

apart to fit a sleeve to the shaft and machine so can I establish the number of poles fairly easily from

peering inside,but it would be useful to know exactly what to look for. Thanks again, Lynne

The motor should have a plate on it which has the voltage, frequency, amps and rpm. You will need this information to program a VFD. A visual inspection of the windings will only be of use to an electrical engineer. You will also have to make sure it is in delta configuration, not star.

Lynne, photos of the spec plate on the motor and the terminals would be of enormous value in helping you.

Lynne, on my RDM 350 it was a four pole 1425 rpm and the motor was 3/4hp.

I made a completely new motor mounting plate and discarded the centre pulley arrangement, ( its in a cupboard) So, now have a longish link belt front to rear, it works well. The replacement motor is a 1 HP 4 pole which I already had, they are available second hand. If you are considering buying a second hand motor do check that the mounting are OK for your machine and get some one with an ohm meter and a Megger to test it for you. Some motors are very easy to change from Star to Delta, other take much Lynne,longer. There has been some excellent picture and explanations published on here in the past on the electrical change over. I made a control box which is mounted above the quill lock, with a speed control knob, stop/start and a jog button below. No reverse here.

Check that it’s a dual voltage motor if you intend to use a 240 v vdf. The plate will tell you

Thanks to all for the comment. Certainly had a senior moment, the RPM is on the plate. Have put a few pictures in my albums, plate and motor. Change from star to delta is by links, so that is easy. The next bigge is to sort out the VFD, so I may well return on this question. Regards Lynne

Based on JF1's post, your ASEA motor is perfect - 0.55kW which is about .75 hp, 1410 rpm = 4 pole, star or delta connection.

If the mill is the same, that may be so. But we don’t actually know what the ‘current’ mill is. The current mill motor might be more than one horse power. Guessing doesn’t particularly help if the real details are not known. Is the mill directly driven by belt or does it have a gearbox to consider?

NDIY, we do, Lynne says it's an RDM350 4 or 5 posts up.  And uploaded a photo showing pulleys on the motor.

Edited By John Haine on 19/11/2019 17:44:42

Lynne, rather than take the motor apart to sleeve the shaft, you could sleeve the pulley. When I fitted a 3 ph motor to my VMB I removed the intermediate pulley, which was almost exactly the same set of sizes as the spindle pulley, turned up a sleeve to fit closely in its bore, with a keyway for the motor key, and pressed / loctited it into the pulley. An excellent modification.

An interesting quote from the linked page:

"From Jan 1st 2017, three phase electric induction motors with a rated output of 0.75kW to 375kW and efficiency less than IE3 must be equipped with a variable speed drive (Inverter Drive). For exceptions, see EC Commission Regulation 640/2009."

Would anyone care to decode this for me?

I think that the crux of the document is about saving energy and a VFD is a useful device to manage a motor to its load. As most of our home workshops do not have three phase and we either use a VFD to convert a three phase machine to run on single phase or we choose to convert for the improvement in control and smoothness of a machine then we comply with the regulation even if we may not be required to.

Mike