vfd on a bridgeport mill

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

hello has anyone put a vfd on a Bridgeport br2j2 mill roy

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Yes, not a problem.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Yes, me too. Excellent result. Highly recommended.

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

hi there you both said ok but which way did you go? 440 volt vfd or 220 volt im thinking of going 230v vfd direct on to the motor then 230 v mains onto the T1 transformer [after removing the 400 volt line] to power the power feed roy

[Chris GunnParticipant @chrisgunn36534]

Roy, this thread may help.

**LINK**

Chris Gunn

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

My power feed is a 120V single phase device and my suds pump is a 240V Danfos central heating pump, so I only connect the spindle motor to the VFD. My motor can be wired for 240V 3-phase, so a std 240V input VFD works fine.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Roy

My br2j2 Varispeed Bridgeport runs happily on a Drives Direct 10 HP "whole shop plug and play" 240 V in 440 V out inverter box. Which is probably not answering the right question.

However the br2j2 has an effective mechanical variable speed drive which makes the variable speed capabilities of a VFD pretty much redundant. The only easy way to fit an ordinary inverter is to separate the head motor from the main control box and control it independently from the VFD. Not too bad a job although sorting the connections isn't as easy as it might be on the standard motors and you have to remember to do the forward / reverse switching thing on the VFD when changing from direct drive to back gear or vikky versa. Probably best to have an extra control box hooked onto the standard knee mounted one keeping all the controls safely together and out of the way. I have mounted a VFD direct on an ordinary J head for a friend which worked well enough but that J head was grated onto a round ram machine so everything was closer to the floor.

Having severed the spindle motor from the main control box you need to make arrangements for powering and controlling everything else. Easy way is to put 240 V in on the appropriate terminals of the big transformer and that will give you the right stuff for everything else. If you want to use the coolant pump the capacitor trick works fine on this size of motor to fool it into running off single phase. Alternative is to junk the big box and roll your own separate supplies. Which can get involved fast.

I started out running mine off a static 240 in / 440 out converter made by MotorRun which was OK (ish). Adding a 5 HP pilot motor to make a rotary converter taught it proper manners but the continuous hum was a right PIA. Especially as it was living on a shelf and set the shop walls buzzing too. I obtained a nice Siemens VFD planning to run the head independently and re-do the rest of the wiring retaining the standard electrical interlocking for safety. Got as far as a roughed out circuit diagram before deciding it was all too much faff and snapped up a the Drives Direct box off E-Bay for a price that meant only a months worth of living on beans on toast. In retrospect an excellent decision as subsequent machines have been added by simply plugging in. The Siemens VFD still sits on the shelf waiting for me to get round to selling it.

its easy to seriously under-estimate the amount of work involved in grafting a VFD onto a (relatively) modern industrial machine with properly safe and interlocked controls. Even the crude wire in independent supplies method takes a fair bit of work and you have to remember to do a proper diagram of what you have done for future repairs. Although I well capable of doing such electrical re-jigging I figure there is much to be said for keeping it all standard so the diagram in the manual matches what you have.

In principle I like ordinary VFD boxes but in practical I'd never use one on anything that wasn't a simple motor drive. The mitsubishi box on my Elliot shaper is great though and an ideal application.

Clive

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

hello many thanks to all who replied at the moment I am using a home brew RPC using a 7.5hp pilot motor this sits under the carport, my neighbours have made 'comments' re the loud hum it powers a student, Bridgeport and pillar drill, I keep switching the rpc on and off when not in use to stop the noise and keep the electric bill down. I did think about a VFD to power all the shop in one go but is expensive, so think I will power each machine individually.re the bport I will change the main motor over to 3 phase 220 v and put in a 220 v single phase to the T1 transformer to power the table, I don't use the suds pump [to much mess] I also have the shaper but have never used it again many thanks roy [fodenman]

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

hello again if any one is interested I do have the wiring diagrams from Bridgeport drg no wd162d issue 3 title schematic diagram sheet 1 &2 these show all the wiring for motors, contacters overloads etc I can scan and email, ,for details email to fodenman1@yahoo.com

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Roy

Yup one off expense is the problem with the whole shop inverter box. I originally started down the one inverter per machine route, helped by picking up 3 name brand ones for £ very, very reasonable. However when I stared balking about the futzing around involved in converting the Bridgeport I sat down and did a proper figure out of the relative costs involved including a decent stab at all the little bits you "forget" about I concluded that break even on pure £ basis was around 3 or 4 machines. Given that there is never enough time for even half of what you actually want to do simple plug and play has considerable attraction and, in my view, worth paying extra for. Electricals and wiring being so not my idea of fun!

I'm up to 7 machines on my box plus the sandblaster extractor fan. So I figure I'm way ahead.

A fairly effective way of reducing air transmitted noise from your rpc is to put a box over it with 2" expanded polystyrene sheet or similar insulation material over it. Rpc needs ventilation from underneath and around 6" airspace between it and the box. Maybe a couple of small slots under the top for ventilation too. I did this, with a bit more airspace, on a 16 cu ft Vee twin Atlas Copco compressor and it was very effective at noise reduction. In the compressors case I had ground transmission and intake noise issues too. Standing it on two old tyres laid flat stopped ground transmission and a big car air filter on the inlets killed intake noise.

Clive

[roy williams 3Participant @roywilliams3]

hello all I finally bought a drives direct 10hp ma7000 vfd a bit more than I wanted to pay but it works very well indeed, sold my home brew RPC and wired this one, I also bought a sine wave filter. my 3 machines are all hard wired in from the vfd to the filter,then an old MEM fuse wire fuse box then out using standard swa cable no interference on the workshop radio on fm all I hear is the units small fan keeping it cool. with the vfd on the display shows .1 amps being used, much much better than the 7.5 hp pilot motor at around 10 amps on tick over

roy fodenman1@yahoo.com

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