I'm in the process of fitting a 3 phase motor and VFD to my currently single phase McMillan (Honden etc etc ) lathe.
I inherited this machine from my Dad when he died back in 2003. He bought it around 1984 from an old bloke who had bought it new in 1982.
Since I've owned it I have moved it to four different sheds and I really haven't used it a lot.
In all that time I have never checked the power cable to make sure it was secured properly. I'd just assumed that it would have been done correctly.
So today I started to remove the old motor.
The power cable comes in at the back of the hinged change gear cover. Cable inside the cover runs up to the forward/reverse switch (which is also the one/off switch) and another cable runs from the switch down to the motor.
There is a removable steel cover where the cable comes in and a terminal block under the cover. When I removed the cover I realised that there was no bottom to the cover where the cable came in. ( I was expecting a bottom side on the box and a cable gland) So no form of strain relief on the cable at all. Not only that, (probably as a result of being pulled during one of its moves) the earth wire had pulled out of the terminal block completely, had moved to the opposite side, and was about 1 mm from touching the active wire. That's the bare conductor, not the insulation. Both active and neutral wires had been partially pulled out of the terminal block as well.

lathe cable 001.jpg

So, If you have one of these old Taiwan made machines (actually any machine) it might be a good idea to have a look at how the cables are secured.

Peter
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