Let's start with the power distribution. I would come off of the RPC to a 3 phase distribution panel, each circuit with it's own breaker. I would run everything in conduit on the surface, that way it's easy to add to and change later. In my shop everything but the original plugs is surface mounted, including the breaker panel. All stranded wire. Standardize your 3 phase wire colors so you know which is the manufactured leg through the whole system. I would use Purple, Orange, Yellow. On wire sizes larger than 10, you may have to get Black wire, and identify the ends with colored tape. Save Black, Red, White for the single phase system. Green of course is ground in all cases.
As far as outlets, standard 30 or 50 amp, 4 pole, range or dryer outlets, but enclosed in a NEMA 3R box, like RV outlets. All of this except the 3 phase panel and breakers is available at any local big box store.
For the lathe power, you need a motor starter large enough to handle the 15 HP motor. That consists of a contactor and an overload relay. Make sure the motor starter has auxiliary contacts for the seal in circuit. You will also need a control transformer, this transforms the 240 to 120 for the control wiring. The existing start & stop buttons should work fine. If you want to add an E-stop button, just wire it in series with the stop button. You could eliminate the need for the control transformer if you use a 240V coil in the motor starter and run the buttons at full voltage.
Check with the motor rebuild guys, they may have some used stuff kicking around, a new motor starter that large is going to run about $300 for an IEC starter or about twice that for a NEMA rated starter.
For the coolant pump and lamp you could also bring in a Neutral and just run those off of 120V. You could also run the controls off of that also.
I would probably hard wire the lathe into the disconnect on the wall rather than plugging it in, it's not really portable
When you get a bit farther into it, we'll help spec out that exact hardware.
Jim,
Thank you. Right now, following your general idea of surface-mounting conduit was my plan, and for the reasons you mentioned. So, just for general flow in my basic thinking, I want to come off a breaker in my existing single phase load center to the RPC panel. From the RPC, I want to go into a 3 phase panel with individual breakers. From there, I want to send it out to (fused)disconnect boxes at the respective outlets/machines, correct so far? The RPC I was looking at recommends a 60 amp single phase breaker to power the RPC. That RPC will start a 20HP motor, or sustain up to 60hp of running equipment, allegedly. That should be all the 3 phase I'll ever need, even if the compressor is kicking on while I've got the lathe and mill running simultaneously. (Or am I mis-thinking here?)
Outlets will be the thing where I'll want to exercise care. I'm a big safety advocate, and I tend to think not so much about me(because if I built it and installed it, I should danged-well have some idea what I'm doing,) but because I think about down the road, when the granddaughter is running all over creation, and how I make all of that as safe as I can. I worry not so much about what's in the shop, but more about the single phase 30 amp and 3 phase outlets I want to locate for convenience's sake in the aisle section. I suppose I could place them in a lockable panel to prevent something unforeseen. It's not like the kiddo will be unattended in the shop anyway. Probably won't be permitted in there until she's a teenager. I just know how quickly things go awry with kids... And while you can prohibit access, you can't be there and watch everything 24x7x52, so I tend to think about what happens when I'm not around, or not looking. It's that professional/parental paranoid talking here.
I will definitely want to use a transformer to drop to 120v for the control circuits. That's the safest way to go, and as I said above, I'm all about safety. Talk to me about motor starters. I'm accustomed to start and run capacitors in single phase equipment, like my single phase compressor, my A/C system, and a number of other things, but I'm less clear on this "starter" business with 3 phase motors, and I'm wanting to learn. The machine has what appears to be an e-stop button(although it looks fairly ad hoc, as something either added for import in compliance with OSHA regs, or something added by the original customer for the same reason, but it's just got that look of something that got "tacked on" well after the machine was designed.) It may be that since the DLZ family was coming to an end at the time, that this way the factory's approach to complying with some reg or other to get them through the production run. Have a look:
In any event, I don't know how it worked originally, and since most of the wiring is absent from this beast, I'm not positive what I should do with it. Here's a picture of the push-button switches and the run light socket(far right):
The pump switch and the lamp switch are busted from playing with them, the lamp socket is missing its lens. The two important switches seem to be complete.
There's not much else electrical-related remaining on the machine, excepting the motor itself, and that one device that looks like a relay/contactor of some sort. It's under a cover on the back of the headstock pedestal:
The only other electrical items on the machine I've identified are the socket on the back of the middle pedestal apparently for a cooling pump, and another device I found discarded laying on the end of the headstock pedestal when I removed the sheet metal cap to look at the pulleys. It was just laying there, and I don't know if its a part of this lathe, but somehow, I suspect it might be some sort of actuator having to do with the aforementioned "electromagnetic brake." That's strictly a guess, but it's got an electrical box with contacts of some sort inside, it has what looks like a plunger of some sort, and its oily, making me think it used to live inside the gearbox. Heck, it may be something else. It could be some sort of device to sense the RPM since this model was originally equipped with a spindle tachometer of some sort, though absent. Not sure. I'll grab some pictures later and post them. Maybe you guys will know.
I guess the thing is that once I have this thing offloaded and parked in the aisle, I have a little while as the new concrete work and construction goes on. I'll make time for some cleaning, and so on, in and amongst all the other doings in the barn. Oh, and one other question, unrelated to electrical... This beast has about four different shades of paint on it from over the years. What do you guys recommend for stripping the paint away? If I'm going to go through all this, I'd like it to at least not look like a wreck. I want to clean it up anyway. So I'll do a paint job on it. But the paint is chipping off in hunks in places, and it's really in need of some work. Recommendations?
Thanks!
Mark