Hi Andrew,

I've fitted Mitutoyo S500 inverters to my mill, bench drill, and the lathes and mills of various friends. They have all proved very reliable and I can recommend them. I've fitted the E500 unit to my lathe 'cos its 2HP motor was too big for an S500.

Regards, Gary

Most of the branded names are just as good as one another, most are made in japan or Taiwan regardless of who makes them. Fuji make a lot that are branded in other manes like IMO and Smartdrive.

Not as prevalent nowadays but do check that whatever you buy comes with the programming panel.

Mitutoyo and ABB were buggers for this in the past, sell a cheap inverter and then the panel was extra, need to run at above 60 Hz Sir ? that's £xxx.xx for an add on panel.

Last problem are the manuals.

Inverter manufacturers have an unlisted competition to write the most obscure manual and points are awards to the manufacturer who can write the most hair tearing manual.

Sounds funny but it isn't.

Local company to me rang up and said they had a new Siemens inverter 15Kw and could I help them out programming it?

All they wanted was for the motor and inverter, in a big screened box to go on this machine and 20 foot away they wanted a remote pendant with push button start / stop controls, what's know as 3 wire system.

Their electrician couldn't sort it as I had had a fair bit of inverter knowledge could I sort it ?

Inverter comes down with the manual which and I'm not joking was A4 and 512 pages.

Quick look thru and it didn't stand out so did a search, found the manual on line so i could be a keyword search for 3 wire / remote / pendant / rhubarb etc, no joy.

So as not to waste time rang Siemens technical in London, they promised to get back to me.

Promised 3 times that afternoon – no luck.

rang them the following day and they said they would get back to me later.

two hours later Germany rang up wanting to know what the problem was, explained it all again and they said they would get back to me.

In all fairness they did and said change this parameter to this, that to that etc and in all fairness when I did it it worked.

I asked Germany why it was so difficult to follow these manuals and why could they no do a simple wiring diagram for 2 wire [ relay type ] and 3 wire push button.

Their reply was "No one wire 3 wire today " ? ???

Once I knew what the settings were i went back to the manual and nothing in there would have given me a clue that it was these parameters that I needed.

It goes without saying they won that years prize

Andrew, If it's any help, I have a Eurotherm 650 drive on my Warco GH750 lathe and it's been trouble free since new, about 12 years ago now [Eurotherm are now made by Parker SSD] My Chester LUX mill uses a WEG drive, again, trouble free . My other lathe a DSG uses a specially built drive so would be of no interest to you.

Regards,

Raymond.

Hi

I fitted a Imo inverter and a 1/2 hp 3 phase motor with a control pod to my Warco WMT300 lathe last December. Very easy to fit. Instructions easy to follow. I am very pleased with it There are some photos in my album. Would recommbmend it.Got it from Transwave (just a happy customer)

John

Edited By John Thorne on 22/09/2012 21:40:22

Edited By John Thorne on 22/09/2012 21:41:42

Edited By John Thorne on 22/09/2012 21:43:34

tHi there,

I use an old siemens inverter (pre micromaster series) on my ML7 and it works great – parameter programming was easy with the downloaded manual. I also have a couple of other inverter driven machines, and the only trouble I ever encounter is running more than machine at a time. The earth leakage from inverters can be as much as 20mA, and with modern domestic electronic devices (washing machine controls for example) on top of the 20mA leakage from an inverter, or even two inverters can trip the RCD in the house dis board. A split load wiring system would allow you to run the inverter off the non-RCD protected circuit and not encounter too many problems with these small earth leakages.

Neil.

Andrew you dont have to use an inverter there are other ways of powering 3 Phase equipment from single phase.

Paul

Andrew – perhaps not technically helpful, but I have an ML7 (Trileva) and recently replaced the knackered single phase with a new 3 phase. Control provided by a secondhand Omron V7 inverter/controller. This was all connected, ready to go and just left me to (cautiously!!) rewire from delta to star (?) and plug it in. Result? … superb! Soft start, easy speed control in any of the three belt selections (plus 3 backgear, if needed) – almost makes the clutch redundant. Highly recommended.

Rgds

Bill