Well I finally managed to get some shed time to stick a VSD on my cheap Chinese DP.
Step one was to acquire a 3 phase motor.Fortunately I happened to pick up a genuine Leeson (Made in Wisconsin) 240V 3 Phase, 1.5 HP motor for $30. It had a bit of external rust which I removed and threw a coat of paint on in. The blue motor colour clashes violently with the orange but that's too bad.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=257635&stc=1
I wanted to keep the original stepped pulley but adapting the 16 mm motor shaft to the 19 mm pulley opening was a challenging task - basically I turned up a steel bush and added an extra locking grub screw. I made sure the adapter was a tight fit but on tightening the grub screws this throws the pulley very slightly off centre and the pulley vibes just enough to be irritating at higher RPM. I was thinking of adding a grub screw on the other side?
The VSD is a Huanyang 1.5kw unit and it is mounted on a painted steel bracket that hangs off the 6mm bolts used to hold the top coolant bottle.
I put a piece of galv sheeting over the top to stop crap falling into it.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=257633&stc=1
The external controls are inside a standard GPO housing attached to the side of the DP head. The power to the old motor is wired directly to the VSD and then a 3Phase cable goes from the VSD to the Motor. This means the original on-off magnetic switch can continue to act as a safety/Stop switch and the 240 V light works with any mods. It will take some getting used to to use the toggle switch to turn the drill on and not use the safety switch to turn it off, otherwise it turns off the VSD ie have to wait for it to restart.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=257634&stc=1
The directions for the switch and the pot are for me the wrong way around (ie FWD is to the left, Higher speed is anticlockwise) - the switch is easy to fix but the Pot is not so easy but at this stage I don't care about this.
I haven't tried to drill any big holes in it yet - will do some trials and report back.
Apart from the annoying vibe I am pretty happy with it.
I won't eliminate belt changes but it should reduce them significantly.
If I was doing it again I would not mount the external controls so far forward as I'll bet they will get in the way of the next thing I need to drill a hole in!
