I had thought about mounting the drive in the column, but wasn't sure if it needed ventilation for cooling.
Wolf Automation has some 3 and 4 hole enclosure switch kits but they seem pretty expensive. A 4 hole plastic enclosure with on, off, forward/reverse and potentiometer is $116. And they said you need to be able to read an electrical diagram to wire it up. Seems pretty expensive to me. But you are paying for their knowledge and I understand that. The way their setup is, you put it in forward, push a button to turn it on, then push stop, then turn to reverse, then finally turn it on again to reverse, then stop again.. Sounds great for rigid tapping......not.
I can make my own enclosure but understanding the diagram and picking the switches needed is where I need help. I just want a rotary off, forward, reverse, and potentiometer. Give me part numbers and I'll order them now.
And thanks again for putting up with me on this.
Ok Alloy, this is not hard to do. I have at least 6 different machines running VFDs and none of them are the same make. But they all basically wire up the same if you want to control them from a separate set of switches you can mount nice and close. If you look at the pictures of chip_slingers build, you will see my remote panel in that link at post #7 (
www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=17670). On my 1993 2HP Series 1 VariSpeed Bridgeport, I used an ABB ACS350 VFD. But you can use basically any VFD PROVIDED its rated 1) as a 200-240v input (because that's what you'll feed it with on single phase) and 2) its designed to provide the necessary output amps to match your motor. So as an example, don't buy a VFD that is 440v or 550v input ... you won't be able to power it from single phase 240v unless you have a rotary phase converter and stepup transformer in your shop.
Secondly, while you can make a nice little metal box to house your VFD and keep the chips out of it, why bother when you can go to your local scrap metal yard and pick up a nice small electrical box that will suit for $5. In my case, I mounted my VFD in one of these boxes and attached it to the rear side of the pedestal completely out of the way. You'll see in post #7 in the link above that I used another box to contain all my switches and mounted it to hang below the DRO swing arm so I can position my controls as close as needed or push it back out of the way when setting up work on the table.
For switches, I use Allen Bradley 800-series exclusively in my shop. They are Cadillac switches which can be bought for a reasonable price used on eBay anytime. I keep several dozen spares in my cabinet just so I have them when I need one. For your speed control pot, you first need to know what VFD you are going to use as each brand with have slightly different requirements for an external speed pot (ie: 1,000 ohm resistance). Do not worry about wiring these external switches ... they are all low voltage stuff and we can talk you thru this once you have chosen a VFD. Easy-peasy.
What is the input voltage of your motor? You said it was 1hp, 4.2 amp. I'm asking you to check because if its more than 240v, a VFD is not gonna work (see my comment above). If you want, post a picture of your motor plate and the link to the Hitachi drive you are considering. I will confirm if they will work.
One other thought on remote switches before I forget ... you should consider adding a power on/off switch for your VFD. When you're done milling, when you hit the e-stop button it will kill power to the mill. BUT, power is still on to the VFD and when you're not using the mill, you sure don't want to leave the VFD powered up indefinately. So when you see the Power switch on my panel, that one controls the input 240v feeds to my VFD so I can easily power it down right from my remote panel. And the yellow indicator light above it give me a visual to help remind me to power it down when I'm done.
Bill
