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Sept 10, 2021 14:30:11 GMT
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Another weekend gone by so that can only mean more work done on the horsebox. First off saturday morning was spent wandering around the local auto jumble. Picked up a couple of nice vises, got a woodworking one for my dad and a metalworking one for me.   A grand total of £30 for the pair how could i say no. The woodworking vise just needs a clean up and fitting.  The metalworking one does need some attention however. The quick release doesnt work and i was given “some parts” but it is a very complicated system and i cant work out how its supposed to go together.    Anyone got some smart ideas on it let me know. Now then its time for some electrickery. The lights i fitted to the back a few weeks ago need some way to turn them on and off. One of them is designated to be a ramp/loading light, that needs a switch on the outside so after a bit of research i found this one fit the bill nicely.  Drilled a hole in the rear pillar for it.  And fitted  Easy bit done i sat down and started drawing up some diagrams and notes for how best to run the wiring for everything. While i did that my dad made a start looking at the ramp springs. It was fine for me and him to lift but was a bit heavy for the girls. We have been throwing ideas around for a few months on the subject and had a pretty good idea we knew just what it needed. The way the springs fasten to the ramp was a big part of the problem as when the ramp was fully open they went higher than the front mounting point of the spring. This was fine until we added more weight to the ramp a while ago as it used to pop back up too easily. So the mounting point needs moving forwards.  About there should do it. Tested it and that has made a huge difference. So to strengthen the front it got a lump of steel welded on the front edge  Cleaned back  You can hardly tell we got it wrong in the first place.  Its light enough to move now that even my grandma can open and close it so i think thats a win. Back to me and the wiring i ran a bunch of wires through into the cab for switches and warning lights.  Its a bit of a temporary setup with the power distribution and relays ect at the moment as we will be fitting it out with a full fuse and relay board next to the batteries but i don't have that all ready to go yet. For now the loading light comes on with the switch outside and there is a warning light on the dash to tell you that its on, just in case.  The second warning light will be the indicator that the side steps have been left open. The second big light is for reversing, specifically not for on the road but around yards ect.  Thats wired up but the switches havent arrived yet. Some of you keen eyed readers might have noticed the switch for the ramp light does have a little halo light thats currently not connected. This could be handy for finding it in the dark. To turn a simple job into a vastly more complicated one we have some criteria to meet for this. More on that later. In the meantime there is a large hole in the box. You might have noticed during painting a large door appeared in the passengers side wall. This one.  Well its destined to be a tack locker. Which means its going to need a box. But first it needs to go down because thats apparently what they want. Despite me saying over a year ago if you want a box like that tell me so i can cut out and weld in the appropriate steelwork. Ah well they will just have to work around the steelwork thats there now.  Now than my winge is over we can start putting the box in. The bottom section is made from left over glassanite bits and some aluminium angle on the corners holding it all together.  Some walls going in along with a saddle rack that my dad made many years ago.  The ceiling was fitted, complete with a quickly fitted light but i lost the pic. And on that disappointing note thats all for this week |
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Sept 10, 2021 15:06:56 GMT
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Hi,
You're probably already aware but there are numerous videos on you tube relating to rebuilding engineering vices and a lot go into detail on assembly etc.
Nigel
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BMW E39 525i Sport
BMW E46 320d Sport Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 325 Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 320 Cabriolet (Project car - currently for sale.)
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Sept 10, 2021 18:08:52 GMT
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Hi, You're probably already aware but there are numerous videos on you tube relating to rebuilding engineering vices and a lot go into detail on assembly etc. Nigel I havent seen anyone restore a vise like this one. The quick release is normally a spring on the release shaft that returns it. Cant say i have seen that many youtube videos on the subject though
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Sept 18, 2021 18:59:44 GMT
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So a simple job made more complex because, well i don't really know why. It just kind of happened. To start you off on the journey of discovery much how i started on the same path ill give you a brief brief. The switch on the back of the wagon which controls the loading light has an indicator/halo light on it. That halo will be handy for finding the switch if its dark ect. For obvious reasons we don't want it on all the time When will it be needed? After arriving somewhere When getting ready to come home from somewhere So it appears to me we need something that turns the light on when the ignition is turned off and keep it on for ~ 10mins. We also want it to stay on if the ramp is open ready for loading to come home. In itself not a particularly difficult problem. I started off thinking we can just use a capacitor on a relay but after doing a bit of measuring and maths the capacitor would have to be huge. So an alternative solution raised came to mind. Mosfets So i drew a schematic  As you can see it evolved slightly from my original capacitor across the relay design. Nothing too complicated. When ignition is on the capacitors charge and when its off the capacitors slowly drain holding open the mosfet which is part of the light circuit. A very quick design review with my manager didnt raise any concerns so i got on and did the layout.  Between other things one evening i printed out the layout and transferred it to some FR4 copper sheet.  And etched it  Cleaned the toner off and your left with the copper only where you want it.  I changed my mind on a few bits at this point so did a respin and made another one.  Considerably smaller this time too. Got it populated  And tested it works. Need to trim it down and get it fitted in the wagon which i will get round to eventually. Currently the girls have been taking it out quite alot which is nice to see it getting some use again but does make it hard to get stuff done on it. |
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Jun 29, 2022 11:52:56 GMT
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I have acquired a new toy last weekend. A bit of back story a fellow mr2 owner and friend is a retired tool-die maker. We got chatting about the cars and other projects and he mentioned having a lathe sat around. He brought it home a couple of years back after the company he was at were trying to send it for scrap. Since then it hasn't been run as its a 3ph and being in a home garage he only had single phase available. I suggested a VFD and offered to help wire it up for him. The conversation went on a bit and he said if it was any use to me and i could get it running then i could have it.  Here’s the unit in question, A 1974 Colchester Chipmaster A bit of research suggests they are a well regarded machine for the ability to hold tight tolerances and good surface finishes (when in good condition). A big footprint for quite a small bed but big enough for what I'm likely to be making. Forward a couple of months and now i have a bit of space in the workshop i went and collected it.  If you look closely in the back of that photo you can see his pup wasnt too impressed at things changing and kept trying to come home with me too. I got it unloaded back home and bolted a few of the parts back on.  There was a few trays of parts with it and some tooling.  Whats the plan? First up is needs a good clean, a few years of no use and living on the coast there is a little bit of surface rust on exposed metal. In general it doesnt look like its been leaking much which is nice. The reason it was being removed in the first place is partly due to an issue with the variable speed controller, also known as a kopp variator. It had the wrong oil at some point, and before being removed was slipping under any reasonable cut depths. It was apparently fairly quiet when running which is promising.  They are a common failure point on these machines, usually due to wrong types of oil or no oil being used. It weighs a ton and while they can be rebuilt you need some fairly deep pockets if sending it back to the manufacturer. I have some destructions for it so at the risk of making it even worse i decided to open it up and have a gander.  First impressions are good, the drive balls and cones are not showing signs of overheating or serious damage. Although they might benefit from a polish  Again the drive cones look reasonable although the input side is showing more wear than the output. This is opposite to the balls so i suspect someone has been in here before and already inverted the balls.  Something i have noticed is these top components on the spindle, show some signs of rubbing and galling  They seem to have been rubbing against the adjustment end plates.  I am having issues finding an exact parts list for this model of variator, the exploded diagram in the chipmasters manual doesnt show those plates so I'm starting to wonder if they are supposed to be there.  I would suspect they are supposed to be some sort of oil diverter since there is no shaft seals on the unit and no mention of them either. So with it all in pieces whats the plan? I'm leaning towards removing those unknown parts. Then clean and rebuild. I would love the resurface the drive cones but i’m told these parts are beyond hard and require a ceramic cutter to even touch it. I don't have that available so think it will stay as it is for now. I started giving the lathe a bit of a clean since it was a little grubby in the end cover   The headstock end is a little oily  The change gears got a quick scrub with penetrating oil and scotchbrite  Along with some other bits around the back of the spindle, it looks like there may be a small oil leak out the back of the spindle. Ill be looking for an oil seal for it so at some point in the future i can change it out.  The coolant system will need some attention, i would like the coolant up and running but its not essential right now. It seems like the pump housing has corroded and broken  And its all rather manky   I found a nut and bolt in the bottom of the motor fan shroud.  Which appears to have come from the motor end case, so that got bolted back up.  And taken off a few fins on its way out I picked up a 4KW VFD at the weekend so i need to see if i can get it all running off that.  |
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Jun 29, 2022 12:55:30 GMT
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I've no idea what a VFD is (but do have Google!), but I'm looking forward to watching you get the lathe back up to top nick.
Steve
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Jun 30, 2022 11:15:42 GMT
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I've no idea what a VFD is (but do have Google!), but I'm looking forward to watching you get the lathe back up to top nick. Steve Variable frequency drive, it essentially allows me to output 3 phase from a single phase supply and also i can select the output frequency to have a nice slow start and ramp rate to reduce loading on the electrics |
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Jun 30, 2022 20:37:37 GMT
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We've got one on our bandsaw and one on a planer thicknesser, they work well, instructuons are not always crystal clear though (bit of online research cleared things up).
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,223 
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VFD's are generally pretty good, I've fitted a few, mainly to axial vent fans, lathes and radial drills. It's worth keeping in mind that non VF rated motors will run hotter especially at low frequencies, so it's worth mzking sure the motor has good cooling, a separately driven cooling fan is a good idea if your going to run it for long periods at low frequencies.
Most of these VFD's allow you to set ramp up/down speeds, max/min speeds with quite a few other options ( some offer a dc brake option which is great for using as an Emergency Stop on lathes etc)
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Last Edit: Jul 1, 2022 1:40:15 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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VFD's are generally pretty good, I've fitted a few, mainly to axial vent fans, lathes and radial drills. It's worth keeping in mind that non VF rated motors will run hotter especially at low frequencies, so it's worth mzking sure the motor has good cooling, a separately driven cooling fan is a good idea if your going to run it for long periods at low frequencies. Most of these VFD's allow you to set ramp up/down speeds, max/min speeds with quite a few other options ( some offer a dc brake option which is great for using as an Emergency Stop on lathes etc)
I might have to pick you brain when i come to wire it up, my understanding was aslong as i keep the Variator i wont need to run the motor at lower frequency than its rated for which i think is 50Hz although its a 400v motor so i need to see if the wiring configuration can be altered. The one i got should let me set the ramp rate, I'm not sure if it has a DC brake but the lathe does have a brake function anyway although i think it needs a little attention and probably some new shoes/pads. |
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,223
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Should be fine, your variator is mechanical (?) so your motor would normally run at a fixed speed which shouldn't trouble the VFD. You have checked its suitable for 1->3 phase ? (not all are) Also when running them as 1->3 you normally de-rate the VFD i.e. a size bigger than the motor would require on a 3phase supply. The VFD manufacturers normal list a derating factor for single phase -> 3 phase operation. EDIT According to the lathe manual it has a 2hp motor, so your 4kw VFD should be fine  |
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Last Edit: Jul 2, 2022 11:37:57 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Should be fine, your variator is mechanical (?) so your motor would normally run at a fixed speed which shouldn't trouble the VFD. You have checked its suitable for 1->3 phase ? (not all are) Also when running them as 1->3 you normally de-rate the VFD i.e. a size bigger than the motor would require on a 3phase supply. The VFD manufacturers normal list a derating factor for single phase -> 3 phase operation. EDIT According to the lathe manual it has a 2hp motor, so your 4kw VFD should be fine  Yep the plan is to keep the vfd running at constant frequency. the motor is 2.2kw and the VFD is 4kw, i took a gamble that it was probably enough derating. Convienientlty i found the motor plates and its a dual voltage so swapped the connecions over to delta config and it will run on 230v 3ph without loosing any speed/power yes the vfd is good for 1->3ph
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jimi Do you reccomend removing the contactor from the lathe and having the VFD connected directly to the motor? I'm worried that the contacter will cause a spike across the VFD if it tripped.
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,223
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Most of the ones I've seen are wired direct to the motor with a suitably rated breaker on the line side of the VFD for protection/isolation. The VFD manuals I've seen normally recommend this method. Most VFD's have motor protection & control functions (Start/Stop For/Rev Speed Control & E-stop) built in with connections for remote switches. They normally have billion  parameters to setup and that's usually the most time consuming part of installing one. Bare in mind that on 3 phase 230v the FLC of the motor with be higher than on 400v Dual voltage motors normally have 2 FLC ratings on the plate, one for each voltage |
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Last Edit: Jul 3, 2022 10:40:13 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Most of the ones I've seen are wired direct to the motor with a suitably rated breaker on the line side of the VFD for protection/isolation. The VFD manuals I've seen normally recommend this method. Most VFD's have motor protection & control functions (Start/Stop For/Rev Speed Control & E-stop) built in with connections for remote switches. They normally have billion  parameters to setup and that's usually the most time consuming part of installing one. Bare in mind that on 3 phase 230v the FLC of the motor with be higher than on 400v Dual voltage motors normally have 2 FLC ratings on the plate, one for each voltage Cheers, that makes the most sense to me. Yes the motor plate shows the current ratings for both voltages. I can remotley control the FW and Reverse on the vfd with the switch on the lathe, there doesnt seem to be a function for e-stop unfortunatly though which would have been nice.
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Continuing with the cleaning i pulled the motor  And gave it a good scrub  While the motor was out i had a look over to try and work out the motors specs. There was no plate on it but luckily i did find it in one of the boxes of bits that came with the lathe.  Rather lucky that the motor turns out to be dual voltage and i just need to swap the config from star to delta according to the plate.  And changed  Cleaned off the coolant pump  And emptied the tank  Then time to do a bit of wiring.  Not much to see but i removed the contacter from the lathes cabinet and used the existing FW/REV switch to control the VFD on the remote pins, i kept the isolation switch in line with the motor which also doubles as a door latch. At the moment i wont be using the VFD for speed control so i havent connected anything up for that. The knob used to glow so of course i had to make that work too. The wiring was busted and the bulb blown to i pulled it all out and put an led in. Very quick resistor and LED fitted    This wires up the the VFD 12v outlet and is switched by the fw/rev switch so it illuminates in either position.  The motor spins up nicely, currently set with a 30sec ramp up time and a 10sec ramp down time it seems to be handling it just fine although there is no load at the moment.. Anyway back to the variator. I decided to put it back together as it is without the unknown parts as they just didnt seem right to me, looked very homemade and i wonder if it was someones attempt to stop it leaking oil, They don't have any oil seals and the only way they will leak out the shafts is if they are overfilled. Since the proper oil sight glass is missing I'm inclined to believe this line of reasoning.  Anyway part way through assembly i noticed something odd.  These preload springs (cup washers). There should be 2 on the input and 2 on the output..  I only have 2 in total both of which were on the input side. Looking at the output roller “thrust” bearing you can see dimples where its been overtightened  And on the rollers.  So until i can get hold of some more of those and some new case gaskets i have reassembled it to keep the muck out and all the parts together. Since i cant get those parts till next week i pulled the cross slide off and got to a bit more cleaning.  Stripped and as a quick demo you can see the difference here after a scrub with scotchbrite and oil.   You can even see what i assume are the original machining marks on the mating faces  The dials got a good scrubbing too and getting all the compacted grease out the knurling took a bit of doing.  With everything scrubbed i put it all back together.  Am pleased to report that i found a big portion of the the backlash was between the dial and screw on the cross-slide so that tightened up and now there is only 0.16mm of backlash which is much better. Topslide and toolpost done too.  Starting to look much better. |
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Oct 12, 2022 12:06:07 GMT
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The lathe coolant pump needed a little bit of work.  The base was corroded off which made things a little difficult.  But the internals didnt seem too bad.  So i stripped everything down Found a note tucked in with the wiring   Chucked it into the little myford and refaced the bottom of the casting.  Then epoxied a piece cut from ally sheet onto the bottom with the mounting points in   With a bit of paint and reassembly the motor looks good. I put new bearings in it too while i was there.  I havent had the chance to test it yet as i need to wire up a second vfd which is still sat in a box.  Next up was the green paint. This lathe wasnt green originally and very little prep was done when the new paint was splashed on. So as you might expect it all comes off pretty easily with a scraper..  Not all off yet but its getting closer.  Next up the parts i have been trying to get hold of for the past 6 weeks finally got here.  Now the variator can be dismantled again  Cleaned again just to be thorough  And reassembled with the new parts where the missing bits where.  I setup the backlash and everything feels good. I do have an issue with the oil “sight glass” which it has, certainly not original and I'm not even sure the oil will show up on it when the correct amount is in the unit. So i bought some clear acrylic, chopped a piece off. And quickly jumped on the myford to make a better one. I didnt spend too long on it hence why its not fully polished but its clear enough to see through.  It fits and an o-ring should seal it all up.  Now with the variator back in the lathe  Since i know its totally empty i can fill it with the correct amount which is 1 pint of Shell Morlina S2 BL10 and make a mark for the full level.  |
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,223
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Oct 12, 2022 16:04:18 GMT
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Looking good But I wouldn't be happy to leave it wired like that purely from a safety point of view. I'd use the contactor to feed the VFD with the contactor controlled by a start button, a E-stop push button & a pull wire switch. The contactor would only be controlling the power to the lathe, not it's operation. In the past I've mounted a pull wire switch few inches off the floor and run the wire the length of the lathe so that in an emergency you can trip it with your foot (either that or use dead mans foot pedal that you need to keep your foot on, I preferred the pull wire) Wire the contactor with a retaining contact so if tripped by the pull wire switch, E-stop or power loss (you can even retain the overloads as well) it needs to manually reset. |
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Last Edit: Oct 12, 2022 16:05:44 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Oct 12, 2022 20:54:22 GMT
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I've no idea what's going on with any of that wiring, but it looks good, and it's an interesting read! Thanks!
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1968 Mini MkII, 1968 VW T1, 1967 VW T1, 1974 VW T1, 1974 VW T1 1303, 1975 Mini 1000 auto, 1979 Chevette, 1981 Cortina, 1978 Mini 1000 1981 Mini City, 1981 Mini van, 1974 Mini Clubman, 1982 Metro City, 1987 Escort, 1989 Lancia Y10, 1989 Cavalier, 1990 Sierra, 1990 Renault 19, 1993 Nova, 1990 Citroen BX, 1994 Ford Scorpio, 1990 Renault Clio, 2004 Citroen C3, 2006 Citroen C2, 2004 Citroen C4, 2013 Citroen DS5. 2017 DS3 130 Plenty of other scrappers!
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Oct 12, 2022 20:57:39 GMT
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Double post!
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Last Edit: Oct 12, 2022 20:58:04 GMT by OAY842F
1968 Mini MkII, 1968 VW T1, 1967 VW T1, 1974 VW T1, 1974 VW T1 1303, 1975 Mini 1000 auto, 1979 Chevette, 1981 Cortina, 1978 Mini 1000 1981 Mini City, 1981 Mini van, 1974 Mini Clubman, 1982 Metro City, 1987 Escort, 1989 Lancia Y10, 1989 Cavalier, 1990 Sierra, 1990 Renault 19, 1993 Nova, 1990 Citroen BX, 1994 Ford Scorpio, 1990 Renault Clio, 2004 Citroen C3, 2006 Citroen C2, 2004 Citroen C4, 2013 Citroen DS5. 2017 DS3 130 Plenty of other scrappers!
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parameters to setup and that's usually the most time consuming part of installing one.
parameters to setup and that's usually the most time consuming part of installing one.