Emco V10

I brought home today what i thought was a newer better machine

Unfortunately its 3 phase (doh should have checked but at 750 quid it was a steal i think)

I have a choice Replace the motor or buy an inverter neither excites me as im not electrically gifted

Tbh i already have a super 7 but the bearings are showing their age I have emailed and tried telephoning Daz but to no avail so thats a bit of a non starter ,Poor chap must be run off his feet

I was hoping to buy this plug it in and keep working but am that fed up now im thinking of selling them and buying chinese

Any idea what a motor would cost for the V10 I hear the motor is smaller than normal framed motors or how difficult it is to wire in an inverter

Otherwise its going in the classifieds in about 10 minutes

Any advice welcome

Hi - so long as it's a decent machine, that's a good price for a V10.

I sold a 3-phase motor last year for £80 (that was the going rate) so that is what I would expect to pay. You may have to be patient as any Emco bits are like hen's teeth.

You can buy plug and play inverters......so no electrical knowledge required.

Hi,

Don't give up Just yet, have a look in ME and MEW for suitable inverter suppliers, they are not difficult to fit.

I have 2 from Drives Direct running my Ajax AJT4 mill spindle and gearbox motors and have been very happy with them. The support and knowledge was more than adequate, even when I wanted to do something a bit out of the ordinary with the remote pendant controls.

Inverters are quite straightforward to install, single phase mains in and 3 wires out to your motor, plus the necessary protective grounding.

There have been scare stories about interference however, with the IMO inverters from DD, I have experienced none of the problems alluded to in other threads.

regards

CB

P.S. Where in the country / world are you? There may be someone local who can assist.

Edited By CoalBurner on 17/08/2012 20:35:32

Thanks for the replies chaps

I will look into drives direct CB as if what Mac says is correct I dont think I have the patience (or time) for trawling ebay or waiting for one to come up ,I'm assuming the switchgear is 3ph in the box on the lathe also for the milling head if so thats a headache?

Just been on ebay looking at inverters and thats a minefield in itself

I'm in Yorkshire Btw

Mike, one thing to keep in mind is that the switching and control of the motor is all done by the inverter. You cannot have switchgear that interrupts the 3 phase connections between motor and inverter. Disconnecting the motor whilst the inverter is providing 3 phase output will potentially destroy the inverter.

When I converted my mill, I removed all of the switch control gear and wired the motors directly to each inverter. I then connected up the original control pendant on a low voltage circuit to control the inverters.

DD can advise the best way to achieve whatever control you require.

All said, don't be put off by this, it is not as daunting as it may sound.

If you want to run both lathe and mill motors at the same time (not sure why you would) You would need 2 inverters. Otherwise you could arrange some way to connect each motor in turn to the same inverter. You would just need to switch the inverter off at the single phase side before swapping motors to ensure no damage can occur.

CB

Mike, take the following with a grain of salt, but if I'm wrong surely someone will correct me...

Does this lathe have a two-speed motor? In that case you are in front of a bigger hill, as you would need an inverter with 220 V input and 380 V output, and these are a bit expensive. (old school voltage numbers here; I know today they use higher numbers, but still the same stuff comes out of the wall).

For single speed applications it's dead easy: Connect a length of 5-pole cable to the output of the inverter; mount the appropriate female connector on the other end, and put the lathe's connector (It has a piece of cable attached, hasn't it?) into that instead of the wall outlet.

Then use ONLY and ALWAYS the on/off switch on the inverter. Using the lathe swirch when the inverter is running destroys it. Don't ask, I know... )

Greetings, Hansrudolf

What!? The lathe came with the milling head too?

I would say it's a keeper for £750!!!!

CB thanks for the words of encouragment

Hansrudolf thanks for completely destroying any hope I had from CB post (I'm Joking of course)

Thanks for your input Seriously i have no idea if this is the case but when im back home (wednesday) I will certainly have to investigate the plate (if any) on the unit.

MAC you have apoint we will see?

Sincere thanks for all your time Gentlemen

Hello Mike,

You have a good buy albeit 3 phase, there is locally a similar example for £1600.00 which I would term extremely well used.

I have had the pleasure of using two of these machines at different establishments, they were the fore-runner to the Maximat Super 11 range.

There is however a known defect with the pushbutton switches that control the motor speeds and direction, these tend to fail on well used models, Emco used to do a replacement rotary switch as a kit along with the necessary wiring diagram, I have no idea if it is still available.

I also seem to recall you could only select the higher motor speed after first selecting speed 1, hitting the RED OFF button would reset the switches to the default position i.e. all OFF, but this is purely a memory from over 20 years ago, I may be wrong.

I have posted this just in case you do eventually get some sort of 3 phase supply sorted and the machine fails to run, I hope I have not added further to your woes?

Gray,