Thread: Bueller's shed - a noobs journey through vintage machinery

Easter Saturday isn't observed in WA, it's just another day. Hell I wouldn't have a problem if they wanted to shut for the long weekend if they'd just update their trading hours.

Okay first coat of paint on the tables and last coat on the fence is done. Should be able to finish the tables this weekend if everything goes to plan.

Happy with the work I got done over the weekend, paint on all large pieces is finished now so I've moved onto Evaporusting all the nuts and bolts etc before I repaint them. Got another month added to my work contract so I'm placing the order for my helical cutter head today and also going to try and drop the motor off for delta conversion at lunch.

Not long now and it will be on the back of the ute for the drive out bush! Then I get to have my first crack at getting the tables coplanar, that should be fun. Should be able to get a workshop set up out at my parents place soon as well. I'd put the idea out of my mind because they were thinking of selling but the Perth market has made them reconsider so I'll be taking over half their shed in the next few weeks. Excited is an understatement!

Dropped the motor off with the staff at Electric Motor Sales today at lunch, nice blokes. They seemed very impressed with the pulley that was attached to the motor, apparently it was perfectly balanced. From what they said most pulleys will stop spinning and then roll back slightly due to unbalanced weight distribution, this one just stops dead in its tracks.

They said the delta conversion and bearing swap shouldn't be a problem, they're also going to quote on a sealed box and VFD as a full kit so might get everything done at once depending on price.

Helical cutter head is all paid up. Seems they're not that uncommon of a machine, when I spoke with Wizard in January they had stock but since sold out. Mine should be arriving early next month, just enough time to get the motor and VFD taken care of. Came to $870 including shipping to Perth, once I add the VFD, mobile base and delta conversion I should be right around the $1500 mark. Pretty happy with that!

Sick to death of painting so I've been a bit slack this week, wanted to get myself moving again so this morning I started knocking up the vent grille. Should probably weld the grille to the shroud but I won't be back at my parents till next weekend, will probably just use something like JB weld so I can get it painted up with the rest of the parts this week. Might wind up needing to make another one to fine tune the airflow but I figured it couldn't hurt while I have the time, scrap metal is cheap.

Got a bunch done this arvo. Drilled the vent shroud and cabinet to attach the two together with M5 hardware, glued the grille to the shroud with liquid nails and then worked on the mobile base.



Picked up the base yesterday from Timbecon, pretty happy with it but even at its smallest size it was too big for the jointer. I trimmed the rails down a few inches with the angle grinder and that got me much closer without needing to drill and tap new holes. Felt it would be a lot safer if I had something to bolt the jointer to so I cut some 18mm marine ply to size and put that in the recess with a tight fit. The jointer will then bolt down onto that with M10 fasteners.

Past week has been spent painting the vent grille and fabricating the bmh shroud, got some more paint down this morning.





Motor will be ready early this week and my VFD is already in transit from over east, really hoping it arrives by Friday so I can get them both over to a friend for hook up next weekend. Pretty much ready for reassembly but I can't put the tables back on till the cutter block arrives, till then I'm just going to let the paint set on everything.

VFD arrived yesterday and picked up the motor today at lunch, last thing I'm waiting on now is the helical cutter head. Not a lot left to be done now, just need to drop the cutter in and then install the motor once the VFD wiring is done. Happy to say the cabinet is completely finished now, finished making the BMH fitting yesterday and also got the cabinet fastened down to the mobile base.

This weekend it's all getting loaded up onto the ute and heading out to the shed, will probably take me a couple of weekends to get it all assembled and the tables co-planar. Photos to come I promise, I haven't been able to take many lately as my phone died and I'm using one of my development phones from work, not too keen on using them when my hands are filthy or they're likely to get damaged.

Motor and VFD are both working in harmony, happy man! The hum is quite annoying but once the motor is tucked away it shouldn't be a problem. Even so I can't complain for the price and it's nice knowing I can pick up 3 phase machines on the cheap in future.

https://youtu.be/4rO4vesjQJg

Now I just need to figure out mounting the VFD and wiring in the original on/off switch.

Originally Posted by bueller

Motor and VFD are both working in harmony, happy man! The hum is quite annoying but once the motor is tucked away it shouldn't be a problem. Even so I can't complain for the price and it's nice knowing I can pick up 3 phase machines on the cheap in future.

https://youtu.be/4rO4vesjQJg

Now I just need to figure out mounting the VFD and wiring in the original on/off switch.

You should put a switch on the input power to the VFD on the machine itself. This could be the emergency switch as it kills the power to the VFD and stops the motor pretty quickly.
This could be the original switch provided it was a direct (not momentary switch) This could be an NVR although the VFD itself should act like that anyway.

Then you need a second switch that switches the 3P power to the motor on and off - this is the one that wires at low V to the control side of the VFD.
This is the one that you would use in normal operation. You could also use the original switch for this one provided it is not a momentary switch.

You can come over and have a look at how I've done some machines if you like.

Cheers mate, I'll take you up on that. Would be a good opportunity to see how you've mounted them too.

Thoughts on letting the motor spin down itself vs. using the braking feature on the VFD? I've set it to spin down manually at the moment.

Originally Posted by bueller

Cheers mate, I'll take you up on that. Would be a good opportunity to see how you've mounted them too.

Thoughts on letting the motor spin down itself vs. using the braking feature on the VFD? I've set it to spin down manually at the moment.

Spinning down by itself is called a coasting stop - how long does it take to stop.

You can try slowly decreasing the deceleration timed and determine at what set time the VFD decides to pop up an error - "sorry can't do that time" and then increment it up one setting.

Braking for a quick stop will require additional circuitry to be added to the VFD.

Doesn't take ages to coast to a stop, probably 10-15 seconds. Cheers for the info, I'll have a play around.