Wadkin 12" BAO/S Planer Thicknesser Project
- Thread starter MilesH
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memzey
Established Member
Wow - that’s an ambitious project, good luck with it and more power to your elbow! When I was looking at 12” planer thicknessers the thing that made three phase a pain on some machines was that they had 2 motors - one for the cutter head the other for the feed rolllers. I think the BOAS was one of those. It meant that you needed two inverters or a phase converter to power it from a single phase supply - expensive. The other thing with the BOAS was the accessibility of the feed roller motor. I think you have to disassemble and flip the machine upside down to get to it which on something that weighs as much as a BOAS is not easy. Still I’m fascinated to see how you get on, especially with a Byrd head (I didn’t know they were available for that machine) so please keep us updated and post lots of pics!
They list one for the BAO thicknesser. AFAIK the cutterblock units are the same. I'll definitely check with their drawing to make sure though! https://shelixheads.com/SHELIX-heads_fo ... _BURSGREENmemzey":2jgfwjqs said:
memzey
Established Member
That would be great if it works out. Good luck and let us know how it’s going!
Just working out the options to run the machine on 240V single phase.
I don't want to mess with the 2 speed motor and gearbox of the feed so, I'll Use a separate 0.375kW 240V output inverter set to 29Hz so that this motor will run at 1000 rpm and 500 rpm (instead of 1500 and 750) depending on the position of the 2 way switch. This will give base feed rates of 3m and 6m a minute instead of the original 4.5m and 9m.
Regarding the 3hp 90L cutterblock motor, there seem to be four options:
1: Use a 2 step 240V to 400V inverter drive wired to the motor, as is. (Cost: about £700 for the 2 step inverter drive).
2: Take out the motor to take it apart and reconfigure the phase leads in Delta connection. It can then be run by a normal 240V output inverter. (Cost: a load of hassle plus £200 for the inverter drive).
3: Replace the cutterblock motor with an equivalent 240V/400V dual voltage motor (cost £150 for the motor plus £200 for the inverter drive).
4: Replace the cutterblock motor with a 240V single phase motor (cost £180 for the motor).
I'm leaning towards option 3, at the moment. Any thoughts?
I don't want to mess with the 2 speed motor and gearbox of the feed so, I'll Use a separate 0.375kW 240V output inverter set to 29Hz so that this motor will run at 1000 rpm and 500 rpm (instead of 1500 and 750) depending on the position of the 2 way switch. This will give base feed rates of 3m and 6m a minute instead of the original 4.5m and 9m.
Regarding the 3hp 90L cutterblock motor, there seem to be four options:
1: Use a 2 step 240V to 400V inverter drive wired to the motor, as is. (Cost: about £700 for the 2 step inverter drive).
2: Take out the motor to take it apart and reconfigure the phase leads in Delta connection. It can then be run by a normal 240V output inverter. (Cost: a load of hassle plus £200 for the inverter drive).
3: Replace the cutterblock motor with an equivalent 240V/400V dual voltage motor (cost £150 for the motor plus £200 for the inverter drive).
4: Replace the cutterblock motor with a 240V single phase motor (cost £180 for the motor).
I'm leaning towards option 3, at the moment. Any thoughts?
If you are intending keeping the machine for a long time. I would go the extra mile and remove the motor and get it reconfigured as Delta. Having changed two machines now to new 240v motors including a Sedgwick Planer / Thicknesser (covered in another post on here) I dont think the quality of the new motors is a patch on the older Brook or GEC ones. I have also since converted another 3 phase machine with an older motor and VFD and it runs really quietly and smoothly. Just my opinion.
Regards
Nigel
Regards
Nigel
Trevanion
Greatest Of All Time
Seriously Ambitious project, my hat is off to you if you manage to pull it off!
You're talking probably around £1000-1200 for the planer itself, another £1200 for the byrd head by the time you get it to this country, another £500 at least in new electronics plus all the actual time and work to go into the machine. Makes me queasy just thinking about the amount of work, to be honest. But once it's done you will have one of the best planers in the country, no doubt about it. You'll make Wallace jealous.
You're talking probably around £1000-1200 for the planer itself, another £1200 for the byrd head by the time you get it to this country, another £500 at least in new electronics plus all the actual time and work to go into the machine. Makes me queasy just thinking about the amount of work, to be honest. But once it's done you will have one of the best planers in the country, no doubt about it. You'll make Wallace jealous.
There are two motors in the PT. one drives the cutter and the other the thicknesser feed. I would swap both motors for single phase, the machine I believe will when your looking to move it on sell better and for a higher price as people seem to shy away from ‘home’ conversions using VFD’s.
Trevanion
Greatest Of All Time
deema":90hlihw9 said:
Something in the back of my head is telling me there's something really obscure on the feed motor which makes it an absolute nightmare to do a motor swap, I can't remember whether it was something unique about the shaft or the actual motor mount though. I might be totally wrong though.
Doug71
Established Member
Used to have an old one of these and when my electrician was fitting electric brakes to all the old Wadkins to meet regs he never actually got round to fitting one on this, think it was a bit complicated.
A!so had something break on the feed rollers drive which was a pain to fix, as said above had to turn it over to work on it, the access through the little doors is useless, think the theory is these things just run forever so generally never need fixing.
A!so had something break on the feed rollers drive which was a pain to fix, as said above had to turn it over to work on it, the access through the little doors is useless, think the theory is these things just run forever so generally never need fixing.
I might be lucky and find that the cutterblock motor is dual voltage but I doubt it. They seemed only to fit dual voltage motors on the export machines. I'll try to convert the existing motor to a Delta connection, otherwise there's the option of swapping it. I'd keep to 3 phase for the braking ability though. Swapping would allow the motor power to be increased to 4kW.... The spiral TCT cutterblocks seem to need more power and my memory of the BAO thicknesser I used, years ago, is that it was a bit underpowered...
I've been in touch with Byrd Tool Corp. (Shelix). They sent me the drawings that they used for the Wadkin BAO cutterblock that they list on their site. I'll take the cutterblock off my BAO/S and compare. It's a custom item, in any case.
Extracting the thicknesser table.
- Loosen the screw holding the stablising post into the table and lower the post.
- Remove the depth indicator.
- Take out the bolts holding the table onto the column.
- Use the depth motion mech. to lower the table onto planks between trestles.
- Pull the table out like a drawer.
- Loosen the screw holding the stablising post into the table and lower the post.
- Remove the depth indicator.
- Take out the bolts holding the table onto the column.
- Use the depth motion mech. to lower the table onto planks between trestles.
- Pull the table out like a drawer.
