Graduate 3 phase. I only have Single phase.

[Criminalmadman]

Hi guys,

Im new around these parts! I'll probably be posting on a fairly regular basis as I begin my journey into wood turning.

I took delivery of a 3 phase Graduate today. However, my workshop only has single phase power. I realise theres a few different ways of going about getting this thing to work with some kind of inverter or to swap the motor out completely.

I managed to take a rather shoddy picture of the motor (awkward to get the phone inside and take a pic :!: ). I wondered if someone cold give me some advice on which route to take.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks :-D

 

[parvum]

Hi If the motor in your lathe is dual voltage, usually marked 220v/440v and two full load amps values, it is easy to run the motor on 220v via a variable frequency drive, after rearranging the jumper bars in the connection box, there is usually a diagram inside the box, you need the delta configuration.This will give you a range of very useful features, but if you just want the motor to run, albeit on 220v single phase a simple steinmetz arrangement will suffice. there is a ton of info online for both methods and even if your motor is only 440v it is fairly easy to reconfigure the motor to run on 220v. If you need more info please post more details of your motor or pm me.I have lathes with both arrangements and have done this conversion on the Jubilee cosin of your lathe.

 

[minilathe22]

I have a Union Graduate with the same motor as you. I purchased a small 3 phase inverter, which also gives you variable speed and reverse, and some other handy features. The variable speed is great for larger diameters as you can start at a slow speed, and also saves swapping over the belt on the pulleys so often.

I believe the cheapest way to get it running would be to find a single phase motor with the same shaft diameter as your 3 phase motor and install that in place of the old motor. But if budget allows, the inverter is well worth getting.

You can run a 3 phase motor on one phase with some capacitor jiggery pokery, but I do not believe you will get the full power output.

You can also construct/purchase a rotary phase converter, which is basically a single phase motor which is attached to your single phase supply, and then this motor physically rotates another 3 phase motor, which behaves as a 3 phase generator. This is worth considering if you have several 3 phase machines to run, and don't want to replace the motors/add inverters to all the machines.