Motor control box

[Hopefuldave]

Nice neat job, mate - I wish I had 3-phase, looks so much simpler than all the gubbins I had to put together for the VFD conversion on my lathe (I did go a bit over the top, though...)

I see you went with the patriotic wiring for Her Maj's jubilee, too

Dave H. (the other one)

[Mayhem]

Thanks Dave. Our three phase is coloured as follows:
A1 - Red
A2 - White
A3 - Blue
N - Black
E - Green/Yellow

We do end up with some Euro colour wire as well, so we have to adjust. I wouldn't be without 3 phase though!

[Rickabilly]

(06-13-2012, 04:43 PM)Hopefuldave Wrote: I see you went with the patriotic wiring for Her Maj's jubilee, too

As have our American friends

They pre-empted the Jubilee by hundreds of years, very forward thinkers and you're not even Her Majesties subjects, but still Red, White and Blue everywhere!

Hey guys please don't me,

Incidentally the history of "Old Glory" is really very interesting, with the very first American flag adopted by the Naval fleet immediately after the declaration of independence, This "prototype" flag containing a Flag of Great Britain in the Canton, instead of white stars on a blue field, apparently it was a way of creating a flag and insulting Britain as well, the ships all had red ensigns (the flag of the British Navy) so they took these and added the white stripes, effectively "defacing" the British symbol with 13 stripes signifying the 13 colonies that had revolted. Apparently they hadn't realized that the flag they had created was an accurate copy of the Flag of the East India Company. A year later what we think of as the original flag was adopted, this being the 13 stars in a circle version(Betsy Ross).
Typically, Hollywood has created and made popular, an image that never existed, that being the Union Jack being held by the British and the "Betsy Ross" version of the 1777 US Flag being held by the rebels. None of which was true, the Union Jack didn't even exist until 1801.

The point of all this is that I have been researching this for a while and can't find a single instance where the American Flag and the Union Jack have been on opposite sides of a battle field, at least not on purpose and the colours Red, White and Blue have symbolized "Union" continuously since 1606 when the Scottish and English Flags were combined. It's no wonder then that these three colours mean so much to so many. We even adopted them to represent the colours in our electrical wiring.

Sorry about going so far off topic

Best Regards
Rick

[stevec]

(06-14-2012, 06:41 AM)Rickabilly Wrote: The point of all this is that I have been researching this for a while and can't find a single instance where the American Flag and the Union Jack have been on opposite sides of a battle field
Best Regards
Rick

Rick, I believe that the country now called Canada, sporting the Union Jack, was "on the opposite side of the battlefield" with Old Glory while under British rule.
From Wikepedia-"The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire".

[Tony Wells]

Since we're already a little OT, I can't help but toss in the RWB barber pole....wonder what the real connection is, if any.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber%27s_pole


BTW, great work on the box! Do it right, or don't do it!

[Rickabilly]

(06-14-2012, 06:52 AM)stevec Wrote: Rick, I believe that the country now called Canada, sporting the Union Jack, was "on the opposite side of the battlefield" with Old Glory while under British rule.
From Wikepedia-"The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire".

I could be wrong on this because the records are really sketchy, but a few years ago I read a book purporting a theory that "contrary to common belief the two flags had never faced each other across a battle field", The premise was that many of the empire parties against union with Ireland didn't go over to the new Flag immediately, as a kind of silent protest, But thinking twice about it, I doubt that lasted till 1812, although Britain was surprisingly tolerant to Flag misuse, as long as it wasn't too close to home, the East India Trading company Flag is a point to remember where it was a "ripped off" red ensign with 6 white stripes on the red part, the British government allowed it's use despite it not even being for a country or territory under the control of the Crown as long as it didn't leave the Indian Ocean, some reports saying that ships wearing this flag outside the Indian Ocean were to be treated as Pirates, Which was likely to be a problem for the first American Flag bearers.


The version of that particular conflict I was taught said that while America declared war on the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom was too heavily focused on fighting the French to commit any great quantity of troops, given that a significant cause of the war was "Impressment" of Americans indicating that the English were short of troops. As a result the greatest share of "Empire" forces was made up of those Americans that had supported the Empire through the war of independence and then retreated to Canada and then of course their progeny.
This would tend to indicate the use of the old flag.
Apparently the English couldn't understand the American response to Impressment as the English at that time didn't accept that Americans of British birth were not British. We look back at Impressment as being Barbaric but it was simply "The Draft" in the 19th century, I suppose some people consider modern versions of "the Draft" to be equally Barbaric.

But you could well be right, I wasn't there after all

As for Red, White and Blue Barbers poles, I know Red and White was to represent the bloodletting practices that were contained within, but have no idea on the blue.
Maybe they had a serious contingent of "Blue Blooded" customers

Best Regards
Rick

[Mayhem]

(06-14-2012, 07:17 AM)Tony Wells Wrote: Since we're already a little OT...

Yes - lets get back to heaping praise on the OP

Seriously, thanks for the comments. My electrician buddy told me that you will never see a sparkie cable tie the wires together the way I have, as bundling them reduces their ability to dissipate heat, thereby de-rating them. However, we both agreed that wasn't really going to be an issue here.

So look on the bright side guys - if your machine wiring looks like a birds nest it may well have been done by a professional!

[Rickabilly]

It Does look Good Darren,
My Colchester Mascot had all of it's wiring done in single core hard wires all accurately bent and self supporting, when I redid that I was at my old R&D workshop and we had a few guys that did nothing except wiring up control circuits, so I dragged them over to see what the OLD days looked like, and they just shrugged it off saying they couldn't be bothered and what was the point? Just goes to show the state of modern trade pride, I rewired that machine just thirty miles from where it was originally built, after it had been in Australia for 45 years, but those guys were a million miles away from the tradies that did the original work.

Best Regards
Rick

[Mayhem]

That's it - bunch it up and shove it into the enclosure and close the door. Nobody will see it then!

I remember seeing some signal wiring that came out of one of the RAAF bases here, where they still laced the looms with cotton. It was tied at one end of the loom the it ran parallel for an inch or so and was tied around the circumference of the loom and then off parallel again until the next tie off. The tie offs were almost perfect crosses. The lacing was basically |-----|-----|-----|

Would have taken hours to do the whole system and there wasn't a loose bit of cotton to be seen (other than the start and finish tie points).

[Hopefuldave]

Quoting Rickabilly:

My Colchester Mascot had all of it's wiring done in single core hard wires all accurately bent and self supporting, when I redid that I was at my old R&D workshop and we had a few guys that did nothing except wiring up control circuits, so I dragged them over to see what the OLD days looked like, and they just shrugged it off saying they couldn't be bothered and what was the point?

/Quote

Yup, they were works of art!

The back of my Holbrook's electrical panel, now retired and displayed on the lounge wall...:



The front...



And its modernisation!



Dave H. (the other one)