So many posts about phase conversion to 3-phase

American Rotary https://www.americanrotary.com/ is also a good source of rotary phase converters. Building your own is also a real possibility, and you can save a lot of money that way if you want to supply the time and effort, and is not that difficult. There is help available on this forum for choosing components and tuning it to best match your machine(s).

Pricey, indeed! $3,000 for a 10HP. Rotary phase converter is in my future. A 10hp will be much easier and less expensive.
 

That's not a bad price. Building my own would be near $500 even with a used motor. The 10HP sounds like it'll do the trick. Some sites say 15HP for a 5hp lathe duty application; but the specs seem way over the requirements of this lathe. Maybe they're for 100% duty cycle at max current. (Which I'll never see)

Will look for a motor first. Building appears simple. I have experience re building up to 50hp a/c compressor controls. The required components look very familiar. ;)

So I think I have a plan. Excited about stepping up to a nicer economy lathe from my old Chinese 10 x 36.
 
By the way American Rotary told me I'd need 30 amps of single phase for the 5hp RPC I purchased, which I have, but how much are you going to need for a 10hp, just thought I would throw that out there.
 
Going to be running mine off of a 50 amp circuit that have for my welders.
 
Speaking of electrical which always drains my wallet my new 3ph band saw requires a 3ph 20 amp Square D breaker...which cost me a whopping $99 from American Rotary dang! I thought maybe American Rotary was jacking up the price but I ran the part# and that's what it cost elsewhere. :cautious: The 20 amp panel mount receptacle $40, plug end $40, well you get the picture electrical adds up.
 
By the way American Rotary told me I'd need 30 amps of single phase for the 5hp RPC I purchased, which I have, but how much are you going to need for a 10hp, just thought I would throw that out there.
yeah, 50 amp breakers and #8 wire should do it. All my shop wiring is in metal conduit and the longest run from the sub panel is only like 15'.
 
as a point of information,
a 7.5 hp RPC would suffice for powering a 5hp lathe
as a matter of fact i have run 10 hp machinery from a 7.5 hp RPC without incident. ( i don't recommend the practice, unless you have large single phase input wiring)
 
Bought a static converter off eBay, it came from phaseconverterusa . Suited for my 5 HP grinder. Works great. Wrong item shipped the first time. But customer service was very prompt and made correction in no time flat. Would definitely buy from them again. Oh yeah this only cost appx. $50 last yr.
 
Only problem with a static converter is the motor is going to be running at 2/3rds its capacity. That really makes your lathe speeds goofy when trying to get the right feed/speed for a job.
 
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