Thread: Wadkin RS lathe. new motor plus VFD help needed

Henry....the suction line attached to the blue lathe, how effective was it?

I have a VFD on my lathe, the motor is 2 HP and Low = 50-1200 RPM & High = 120-3200 RPM (infinitely variable) and it runs off a standard plug.
Lathe Speed Control.jpg

Just noticed the Chinese router table behind the blue RS8, I have that machine in the exact same colour

Originally Posted by chambezio

Henry....the suction line attached to the blue lathe, how effective was it?

Rod I’d say it was better than nothing but not much.

I’m a bit surprised they don’t have a better set up but that lathe would only be used by staff I guess. They have a few smaller woodlathes for student use.

This is my set up at home and it is great for dust but only catches the chips wot jump into it.
The edge treatment helps with the dust I possibly capture 90% of any dust when sanding.
H.

Originally Posted by Camelot

Just noticed the Chinese router table behind the blue RS8, I have that machine in the exact same colour

Cam, Not my machine this is UTS industrial design workshop.
Sold the RS10 to them about 20 years ago when I got a bigger lathe.
Dropped in to reacquaint myself with the motor set up.
I’d forgotten the nice speed change lever, I wonder if they’d be in a swap.
H.

RE: VFD
Maybe worth having read of this VFDs for Newbies

If you're currently getting 200 rpm @ 50Hz with the 960 rpm motor and slowest speed belt position, then to get 100 rpm it will need to be running at 25Hz.
If the VFD is run in "standard V/F mode" the motor can only deliver about half the power at 25Hz.

To get around this, make sure you get Vector drive VFD and program it to run in Vector drive mode which will give you about 2/3-3/4 power at 25Hz.
OR
Just buy a more powerful motor, usually one goes for double the standard power rating and then you will have full original power at 25Hz

A more powerful motor running in Vector drive mode will give full original power even below 20Hz (80rpm)
Running the motor for some time under load slower than this may compromise motor cooling so you may need additional cooling.

I’ll take it.

Thanks Bob, I was hoping you’d chime in and point me in the right direction.
Probably look at a 3hp motor rather than 2.

I’ll reread ‘VFDs for newbies’ I did read a while back out of interest but now I have a definite need for the info it will make more sense.

H.

I toyed around with a lower RPM single phase motor for my bandsaws to convert them from 3-phase. At the time the only motors I could find in 3HP 6-pole (1000rpm) was around $650 from memory which you then start to think is about the same price of a 3-phase motor coupled with a VFD. I found shaft sizes were typically metric too but you can get around it with sleeves or increasing the bore size on the pulley.