WM14 from WARCO

[Hopefuldave]

HS93 Wrote:in your first post you put that you had used a "I've used a WM14-alike as power source " which mill was it and you have said in your last post you have a VFD is that on a WM14 ?
I have a vfd on my lath but it is set to stop slowley so the chuck does not become a bowling ball.

Peter

Hi Peter,
The Mill's not *exactly* mine, to be honest... One of my biking mates (who lives in Deepest Darkest France) picked it up in a flea-market a few years ago, can't remember the exact make / model but it's a "Fraiseuse something-or-other" - painted white, but otherwise apart from the red LED speed readout it looks pretty much identical to the WM14 and the other Weiss-sourced WMD16's... He brought it over on a visit to his folks last summer and spent a couple of evenings learning how to use it (he's managed to learn his way around an old Colchester Student on his own!) then had to dash back and left it with me
He happened along just as my drill-press had packed up (popped run cap) and during some work on an old Suzuki I used to play at racing, so while he was out visiting I made use of it with a flexi-shaft to muck up the gas-flow - since then I've made a lot more use of it! Unfortunately he's back over in his van in June, so... Mill required, probably a bit bigger!

The VFD's on my lathe, an ABB ACS-301 hacked to fool it into driving a BTH 3HP 415v motor - the lathe's brake is a bit pathetic, and as I do a lot of metric threading on an imperial machine I have to do the "leadscrew nuts engaged, forward and reverse" trick, so I'm forever starting, stopping, reversing - the VFD was giving over-voltage faults with a quick stop and reading the manual suggested using a brake resistor would cure this - true! The resistor's home-brewed, a bunch of 750W halogen heater elements in series/parallel to give 80 Ohms and about 3KW-continuous power handling (with a 10A fuse in series - I think this allows the equivalent of about a 4HP maximum braking effort?) - and yes, on a rapid stop it *does* glow a bit! I'm lucky enough to have a D1 camlock spindle nose, so no chance of the chuck unscrewing (and I use all 6 camlock pins with the big 4-jaw / faceplate, which helps take the stress when slamming it into (electrical) reverse!)

Dave H. (the other one)

EDIT: I took a look, the brand-name on the WM-alike is "Multirex", a quick google finds that to be a French hobbyists' retail outlet for various tools and small machinery - they only seem to stock the smaller mills now though, perhaps there aren't many French model engineers! Also edited the brake resistor spec', memory fade!