What Did You Buy Today?

woodchucker said:
I bought a 2hp 3ph motor for my clausing 8520 mill. I plan on getting a cheap VFD to control it. I know pay once cry once. maybe I'll go better.
The motor is a made in USA Franklin. The original motor is 3/4, so when dialed down, it should be able to provide the torque ..

do any of VFD's provide 120 V output in addition to the 3ph 220v?? I would like to add a pancake fan to cool the TEFC motor when on. I know that when you turn down the RPM they don't get the cooling they need, so figured a 120v high cfm pancake fan will help it stay cool.
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I'm not aware of any that do, but they might be out there. You have to feed the VFD 220v already, why not use that to power the fan? Or if you can also run a neutral, you can use that with one hot to get 120v. If the idea is to have it powered along with the main motor, I think most VFDs have an output you could use to trigger a relay and turn your cooling fan off that way. You could even get really fancy with a temp controlled fan circuit.

I've always read that as long as you aren't trying to run really slow, it's not a big issue unless the motor is running for very long periods. I set my VFDs to only slow down about 50%, 30hz-120hz usually. If I need less speed, I use the pulleys or the backgear on my Bridgeport. I'm not sure what options that mill has for spindle speed control, but that works well for my needs. I don't have a temp probe my my motor, but it's not hot after running large, for me, cuts. About 30min runtime in a cut then feeling the case and air from the motor internal fan. Granted, my hand is not calibrated for temperature.
 
pontiac428 said:
I'm getting close to the great reveal. Maybe this weekend, maybe maybe next, but soon you are gonna see what I've been up to the last six months!
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I know you have been lurking around in the minutiae which usually means you are up to something. Cant wait
 
A while back I sent a small package of used tooling to Canada. I was surprised at how expensive it was. Went by mail. Inflation has nibbled away at the Canadian $ even more than the US. It has hit the UK even worse.
 
Larry$ said:
A while back I sent a small package of used tooling to Canada. I was surprised at how expensive it was. Went by mail. Inflation has nibbled away at the Canadian $ even more than the US. It has hit the UK even worse.
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Actually, our dollar is weathering inflation pretty well compared to other currencies. Not great, but stable-ish. We've only dropped roughly 4-5 cents on the dollar compared to pre pandemic.

But, shipping in Canada has always been expensive. Canada post rates are extremely high and the couriers aren't much better. Canda post lost the ball when they went from a crown corporation to Private ownership, costs started climbing rapidly shortly after that deal and have stayed high.

We make more than most people in the states, but things generally cost more so it kinda cancels out.

I find it's like that most places around the globe. When I used to travel to UK once a year for business, I usually found if something was a dollar at home, it was a pound in the UK. It was the exchange rate that killed the Canadian dollar to pound. Was the same type of thing in Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, etc. Whenever we used to travel through the states, I would find if something cost a dollar Cdn, it would be around 50-75 cents USD. So the hit wasn't as bad compared to the rest of the world.

You want to see expensive? Head up to the Canadian arctic and try and order a pizza. The strong USD to CAD isn't even going to save you there......I don't know how people evne manage to live up there. Even we used to get islation pay on top of our regular pay when we were up there and it still didn't even things out....
 
Zoro.com isn't the most organized site, making it hard to shop for anything that's not deliberately searched for. It responds to part numbers well. When they offer free shipping, they can undercut the hell out of Lowe's Depot, and often with USA made products or at least quality controlled imports (these paint brushes are decent chinese, but I went cheap). The tape cost half of retail. I saved myself a trip this week, saved money, and got more for my money by ordering through Zoro. It took 5 days, which is good enough for my time table.

I also got two more Kipp levers, one for the Nardini compound lock, and one in a size common to two other machines I own for the spares bin/alternate use because the price was right.

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