Just got back into town late last night.
stevec, Can you elaborate as to why you chose to down-rate your big lathe by going to single phase and 2 HP less? I've heard many reports of single phase machines having problems with finishes and slow to change speeds.
I have a 1974-vintage 16x40 Victor (Taiwan) lathe, and it has the original 5 Taiwanese HP motor. I don't have but 100 amp 220 volt single phase service at the house (my dad's shop), so I got a rotary phase converter control unit from American Rotary Power and used a old 15HP 3-phase motor we had kicking around as the idler. We use a 40A circuit to run it, and it sure works great. I also do not run any production, but have definitely used all of the 4.25 HP it really has on several occasions. Negative rake carbide insert tooling needs power and speed, but wow it sure can get the job done in a hurry. We get nice finishes, and appreciate the power and fast reversal when machine tapping with big taps.
I'm just wondering why you didn't choose to go with a fairly inexpensive VFD or RPC to keep that nice big lathe as a 3-phase driven spindle.
stevec, Can you elaborate as to why you chose to down-rate your big lathe by going to single phase and 2 HP less? I've heard many reports of single phase machines having problems with finishes and slow to change speeds.
I have a 1974-vintage 16x40 Victor (Taiwan) lathe, and it has the original 5 Taiwanese HP motor. I don't have but 100 amp 220 volt single phase service at the house (my dad's shop), so I got a rotary phase converter control unit from American Rotary Power and used a old 15HP 3-phase motor we had kicking around as the idler. We use a 40A circuit to run it, and it sure works great. I also do not run any production, but have definitely used all of the 4.25 HP it really has on several occasions. Negative rake carbide insert tooling needs power and speed, but wow it sure can get the job done in a hurry. We get nice finishes, and appreciate the power and fast reversal when machine tapping with big taps.
I'm just wondering why you didn't choose to go with a fairly inexpensive VFD or RPC to keep that nice big lathe as a 3-phase driven spindle.