three phase supply

[Paul BarterParticipant @paulbarter66156]

[Paul BarterParticipant @paulbarter66156]

Hello all

I have been struggling with arranging a three phase supply for an elderly but lovely Wadkin BZL wood lathe. I have read and seen all manner of methods some merely expensive and complex and some obviously potentially lethal.After much agonising I decided to have a go at making my own, following as ever, the wisdom of others. May I recommend John Cox's book Electric Motors in the home workshop ISBN 1-85486-133-6. The instructions therein were crystal clear , including a concise step by step route to convert my 415V star wound motor to 220V delta,. The circuit diagram for the converter is easy to follow, even for a two wire electrician like me. The list of components was easily translated (some of the part numbers are now superceded) by helpful staff at my local Maplins and for an aggregate cost of about £60.00,(The 90 micro farad start cap had to be made up from a triplet of 30 micro farad caps which hiked the cost.)

I went off with all the components to build the converter. Even after checking and rechecking all connections this assembley only took an hour or so followed by, frabjous joy ,the motor runs at the right rpm and in the right direction (this is however very easy to reverse, should it be necessary).

I have no connection with the author or his estate and simply pass on this information in the hope that it might benefit other frustrated machine tool tinkerers.

[SkarvenParticipant @skarven]

Hi, I will also recommend this book.

I just read it, and it is the best book I have seen explaining electric motors of all kinds.

It's written in a way that most people can understand, and it handles DC, AC, VFD…

Definetly a book for everyone using electric motors. I thought I had all this knowledge before I bought the book, but I learned quite a few things.

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

Both of Jim Cox's books are very good, another one you might wish to consider is Graham Asterbury's "Three Phase Conversion" also from the Workshop Practice series which I found very informative.

An excellent source of sensibly priced capacitors in the UK is Cricklewood Electronics.

Paul

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