New Member From Langley Bc Ready To Start Lathe & Mill Shopping

Kiwi Canuck said:
Progress is happening again, I was away for the month of March traveling and have finally freed up some time this weekend to get back at the machines.

I finished pulling the wire to both machines and I wired up the sub panel with two 30AMP breakers and buttoned that up.

The mill is now hardwired, but I'm trying to figure out if I can use a plug for the lathe.
It would be nice if I can unplug it if needed and I have one of those Range wall receptacles (which I'll mount overhead) and hope to use that and make a custom cable to drop down to the lathe. If that doesn't work out I'll just hardware it.

On the mill I reinstalled the VFD control box and wired up the rotary power switch and ran the power through the fuses, I just need a couple of DIN rail terminals to split the 240VAC and 120VAC so I placed an order with AD so should have those in a few days.

The control pod for the mill is not yet mounted so I'll tackle that next.

I have a small job to machine 8 brass knob guards for work so it would be nice if I can get it working soon to get those done, but I've got a backup plan if they are needed before I'm ready.
I'm really feeling comfortable wiring the mill and I have the entire thing mapped out in my head how it's all going to come together, ha ha probably just jinx myself.
Nice that Mike (MSKJ) supplied the wiring diagrams which has been a great help but the wiring routes have taken quite a bit of thought and I'm trying to make them presentable and teach my sons (13 and 14 years old) how the systems work at the same time.

I've enrolled my 14 year old to assist with the programming of the VFD, he leads his robotics team at school, does most of the high level programming and is pretty sharp when it comes to this kind of stuff, so hopefully it shouldn't be a big stretch for him to get the VFD setup and running.

I'll have some photos worth posting by next weekend.

David.
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David. Reading this as I sit in O'Hare on my way back to Vancouver. I have a bunch of stuff waiting in Sumas to pick up later this week which includes all (I HOPE!) of the stuff I need to wire up my mill. I'll be following your progress as I'm a bit concerned about the VFD progamming issue myself.
Alex
 
Kamloopsendo said:
David. Reading this as I sit in O'Hare on my way back to Vancouver. I have a bunch of stuff waiting in Sumas to pick up later this week which includes all (I HOPE!) of the stuff I need to wire up my mill. I'll be following your progress as I'm a bit concerned about the VFD progamming issue myself.
Alex
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Alex, I hope you do have all the parts and pieces needed, it's a process learning this stuff and I know I'm still not done shopping but that's half the fun.

I'll let you know how we go with the VFD programming, we will be following the template posted by Mark.

David.
 
Kiwi Canuck said:
Alex, I hope you do have all the parts and pieces needed, it's a process learning this stuff and I know I'm still not done shopping but that's half the fun.

I'll let you know how we go with the VFD programming, we will be following the template posted by Mark.

David.
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David: If Mark posted a template for this I've missed it and would appreciate a link to it sometime. Thanks and best of luck!
Alex
 
Thanks David. I misunderstood and thought you ment that Mark had posted one specifically for the mill with his wiring diagam.
Alex
 
Got the VFD powered up, but still a bit of wiring to get done, here's the progress so far.

I bought a few DIN rail terminal strips and I also ordered the bridging terminals from Automation Direct, the bridges mount from the front and don't take up a space. I didn't know about these things before and always made my own jumpers but these are so easy to install and use.

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You can see one of the triple bridges on top of the box to the left of the blue pliers.
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Got a few extra terminals, as they came in 25 packs and I wanted to use different colours for different voltages and they were pretty inexpensive so I bought a box of each colour I needed..

https://www.automationdirect.com/ad...cks/Single-level_Feed-Through_Terminal_Blocks

The wiring is all done with 10AWG solid for the incoming 240VAC & 120VAC and so I bought the terminals that can handle 24AWG to 10AWG and they work very well. (I know I don't need 10 AWG for the 120 V but I already had it left over)
I also bought a few Green/Yellow ground terminals as I needed a few extra connections and the single post is already full and I'm not done yet, there are 2 of them to the right of the fuse block.


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Kiwi Canuck said:
I finished pulling the wire to both machines and I wired up the sub panel with two 30AMP breakers and buttoned that up.

The mill is now hardwired, but I'm trying to figure out if I can use a plug for the lathe.
It would be nice if I can unplug it if needed and I have one of those Range wall receptacles (which I'll mount overhead) and hope to use that and make a custom cable to drop down to the lathe. If that doesn't work out I'll just hardware it.

On the mill I reinstalled the VFD control box and wired up the rotary power switch and ran the power through the fuses, I just need a couple of DIN rail terminals to split the 240VAC and 120VAC so I placed an order with AD so should have those in a few days.
Click to expand...

Electrical plugs & disconnects should have a HP rating on them if you use them for a motor. Technically they need to be able to safely interrupt the maximum amp draw of the motor, not average or normal running amperage. So generally a disconnect or plug would be rated for noticeably less HP than the amp rating would otherwise suggest.

I'm not sure if or how a VFD is used. Breakers & fuses dont have this issue as they are designed to be able to open at most any amp rating over when they trip. And if a breaker or fuse is underrated it will just safely trip.

I ended up ordering my disconnects online as neither HD or Lowes had any HP rated disconnects. I ran 30@ worth of wiring over to the corner next to my lathe. I have the disconnect there with a 15@ slow blow fuse in it. Im all set to hard wire the lathe in, but have been busy & sick the past month or 2 & haven't been able to wrap the install up. So in theory I can drop my future mill into the same circuit & attach my extra disconnect with an appropriate fuse. I likely won't be able to run both the lathe & mill at the same. But it's only me in the shop so I doubt I could pull that off safely even if I had the electrical power to do so.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 
Fallon said:
Electrical plugs & disconnects should have a HP rating on them if you use them for a motor. Technically they need to be able to safely interrupt the maximum amp draw of the motor, not average or normal running amperage. So generally a disconnect or plug would be rated for noticeably less HP than the amp rating would otherwise suggest.

I'm not sure if or how a VFD is used. Breakers & fuses dont have this issue as they are designed to be able to open at most any amp rating over when they trip. And if a breaker or fuse is underrated it will just safely trip.

I ended up ordering my disconnects online as neither HD or Lowes had any HP rated disconnects. I ran 30@ worth of wiring over to the corner next to my lathe. I have the disconnect there with a 15@ slow blow fuse in it. Im all set to hard wire the lathe in, but have been busy & sick the past month or 2 & haven't been able to wrap the install up. So in theory I can drop my future mill into the same circuit & attach my extra disconnect with an appropriate fuse. I likely won't be able to run both the lathe & mill at the same. But it's only me in the shop so I doubt I could pull that off safely even if I had the electrical power to do so.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Fallon, thanks for your response, I'll need to find a plug and socket with a suitable rating, so I'll need to do some research on what I can use.
 
In the meantime I have been finishing up the Control Pod.

I found some multi conductor shielded cable in 22AWG for the Control Pod at my work which will work perfectly.

I did buy some 6C 18AWG wire from Automation Direct, for the control buttons, but this cable will work for the controls plus the speed pot and tach, so I've decided to use it instead.

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I just remembered I need to find the 24VDC - 12VDC converter I purchased to power the Tach, as I haven't allowed for that on the install yet, should be fun finding a space for it without cluttering any of the other devices or wiring.

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That's about all for today, hope to get the VFD programming finished tomorrow.

David

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David, very nice work. Looks great!
 
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