Adapted a standard 100l B5 flange motor to my PM935. It's was a PITA!

[Ken226]

But, I got it done. Finally!

Anyone else done something like this? If so, how did you do it?

I picked up a Helmke Plus 3hp 3 phase motor on ebay. It was 200$ with free shipping from Germany. Kinda baffling that they could sell a 40lb motor, and ship it from Europe for that price. Oh, and it only took 5 days to get here.



It has a standard 100l b5 frame and 28mm shaft, so I hand do do alot of work to fit it to the PM935ts. Including boring the pulley and broaching a new keyway.

I had to fill in 2 bolt holes, and build up alot of metal with a Tig welder to create the two 1/2-13" threaded holes needed. Welding cast aluminum kinda sucks, and I got plenty of porosity.





On the right side, I had to make a new bracket/mount and belt tensioning lever. I ended up using a scrap stump from a Krieger 5r .30 barrel, turned threaded and knurled to use as a lever.







This job was kinda tough. But it's finally done. I got to use it for a few hours yesterday to make some lead molds for a local company that makes leather saps. It seems to work great, so far.

With the vfd set to a 25hz min and 75hz max, between the step pulleys, back gear and variable speed motor I have a speed range from 8 rpm up to 3600rpm.

 

[mikey]

Great job, Ken!

 

[Ken226]

Great job, Ken!

Thank you.

I originally planned to buy a 3 phase motor from Precision Mathews, but they appear to be backordered, with quite a wait.

I wasnt even sure adapting a standard flange motor would be feasible, but took a chance and ordered one anyway.

Now I have a 2hp single phase lathe motor and 3hp single phase mill motor to put up on craigslist, or maybe eBay.

 

[7milesup]

Awesome. Excellent job and your welding looks great.

 

[Ken226]

Awesome. Excellent job and your welding looks great.

It's like a 10ft paint job. Not as pretty up close. I built it up thick, then milled it flat. Several times.

Crap inside the casting kept vaporizing into bubbles, and floating up in the aluminum. Once I got an area built up enough to get away from the cast material it was easy going, but welding directly into the casting is tough with my minimally competent tig welding skills.

 

[Cletus]

Hi there, Great job!
I like your DRO Display and will get one from Amazon. Which scales are you using with it? Not sure what is compatible.

 

[Ken226]

I used various scales from a couple sources for both the mill and lathe.all of the cheap 5 micron unbranded scales worked fine.

The Sino 5 micron TTL slim scales worked, but the Sino 1 micron RS422 scales I got for the lathe's cross slide did not. If you intend to use scales like those, go with the Ditron display. It's 250$ on amazon.

The scales from ToAuto on Amazon had different plug pinouts, and needed the wires moved to different pins in order to work.

 

[Cletus]

I used various scales from a couple sources for both the mill and lathe.all of the cheap 5 micron unbranded scales worked fine.

The Sino 5 micron TTL slim scales worked, but the Sino 1 micron RS422 scales I got for the lathe's cross slide did not. If you intend to use scales like those, go with the Ditron display. It's 250$ on amazon.

The scales from ToAuto on Amazon had different plug pinouts, and needed the wires moved to different pins in order to work.

Thanks much my friend, much help.

 

[mksj]

Nicely done, yep usually a real PITA to adapt new motors to mills. I worked with another individual that had an older mill and did a retrofit with a 3 Hp inverter vector motor, he ended up using some 1/2 plate steel to make an adapter plate similar to yours, the previous motor flange bolt circle was much wider than the new motor but the shaft bore was the same.