By No Means Am I An Electrician !

Thought some more on this. Mind you I know a good bit about electrical so when it came to building a rotary phase converter, I just got on the web and did some research and built one. But that's me. I will say that if you have a buddy that can be plied with beer and pizza that knows industrial electricity you may pull some info off the web and have him look at it and see if he thinks he could build one. Another option is there are sellers out there that are selling control boxes that you connect to a 3 phase motor that give you a RPC but you don't have to pay shipping on a motor. When you are getting into the 10 to 15 HP size motors, the shipping can be a bit much. You would locally source the motor and then connect it to the control box. For some guys that's a bit too much even and I understand that. Electricity is one of those funny things that has a lurking potential to do serious harm and damage when it's played with or worked on by the uninformed.
 
I bought a controll panel for a 15 hp from Jim at phase-craft. Had to give all the info off motor tag to him before he sold me the panel. He is the nicest person to deal with you'll ever find. Got all hooked up and a buddy checked the 3 legs with a meter and they almost matched perfect. Like 1 percent difference.
A year later I thought something had gone wrong with the panel, so I called Jim.
He walked me through some checks and I found my 220 breaker had lost one side, not the panel. Just saying his knowledge and help was well worth the small extra cost of scrounging parts and trying to build a panel myself.
Thanks Ron happy customer
 
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OK , so here we go again . Have a SB heavy 10 wired 440 . Whats the best/easiest/cheapest way to get this running 220 single or is a static converter the way to go ? Can the existing motor be wired 220 ? Yank the motor and put a 110 in ? :bang head::surrender:
 
Since its 440V I'd assume the motor is three phase, since its a SB Heavy 10 I'd assume the motor is no more than 1hp.? If you only have 110/120V power available switching the motor may be the cheapest way to go but 115V single phase input 230V 3phase output VFD's are available up to 1hp. They are around $200.
 
OK , so here we go again . Have a SB heavy 10 wired 440 . Whats the best/easiest/cheapest way to get this running 220 single or is a static converter the way to go ? Can the existing motor be wired 220 ? Yank the motor and put a 110 in ? :bang head::surrender:

As far as the direct question about the motor in the lathe. If the motor is a dual voltage motor it can be wired to 208-220 or 440. Open the motor cover where the power goes in. If there are 9 wires coming from inside the motor it's probably a dual voltage motor. The data plate will also indicate if it's a dual voltage motor. Now as far as 3 phase vs single phase. If the motor is 3 phase, there is no way to directly run it off single phase power. You would need a VFD or a rotary phase converter to create 3 phase power to use that motor. If this machine is going to be the only machine you are going to be running then just get a 220 single phase motor and replace the 3 phase motor. Unless you have a larger 3 phase motor sitting around to build a RPC out of you are going to spend more money building one than it would be to replace the motor with a single phase one and be done with it.
Now if you are wanting to run multiple 3 phase machines in your shop then it's a better bet to build or buy an RPC that is big enough to run all of those machines.

So the cheapest way
if this is the only machine,,,, replace the motor... if you have 220 in the shop buy a 220 motor,,,, if not, buy a 110 motor.
220 motor will be a similar price to the 110 motor but electric bill will be higher for the 110 motor.

If you have multiple machines, or plan on having multiple machines then depending on the number of machines an RPC is the next cheapest.

VFD's are always an option as well but at $200 or more per machine, they can get real expensive real quick if you have several machines to buy them for.
 
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