3 phase electric HELP

[cqueen]

sjj84 said:

The Siemens unit, at the bottom as can be seen in the picture you've got two wires coming out which are marked up as 24v, what is going into the top of the unit?

Nothing else going in/out of the top of the unit.

[thinfourth2]

Phone the guy at drive converters as he really really knows his stuff

Be warned he talks complete gobbledegook once he gets going.

I think your two basic options are either a big inverter that can handle the starting currents of the motors or 4 little inverters one per motor.

[cqueen]

I read that for running multiple motors it's better to have a rotary converter - bugger me they are noisy though

Who is the guy from drive converters? does he have a website?

Thanks

[thinfourth2]

I meant drives direct who i gave a link to before.

As to the rotary converter probably the easiest solution but they are ineffiecent noisy buggers

I'd go down the digital converter for each motor route but i'm confident enough to gut the control panel and rewire it on my own without the help of a sparky.

If you do get a sparky most of the ones that do house electrics would be lost with 3 phase

[cqueen]

This is turning into a right ball ache. I'll give him a call tomorrow, thanks again.

[sjj84]

cqueen said:

Nothing else going in/out of the top of the unit.

It must have something, it's a transformer which I'm assuming is for the control circuit. 24V is coming out of the secondary side of the transformer, there has to be something on the primary side.

[cqueen]

Ok update.

I've bought a PC40 static converter rated at 20 amps. The problem is, the 3 phase converter female output socket has 4 holes. The male plug on my machine has 5 pins...

Anyone care to point me in the right direction?

Cheers

Chris

[hidetheelephants]

Your converter has:


Your machine presumably has something like



A decent Sparks will take about 5 minutes to swap the plug for the right one, and that includes time for a cuppa.

[cqueen]

Phew, thats a relief. Could I do it myself?

[jason s4]

That N is there for a reason.

Swapping the plug to a 4 pin could render part of the machine un usable.

[cqueen]

Ive done a little internet reading and it seems as if the 5th pin on my machine is the neutral wire for powering the things in the machine that are not 3 phase, i.e. light bulbs, temp gauges etc.

FFs, this just gets worse!

[jason s4]

Which is what i posted above.

Why dont you just get an electrician in to sort this???????????

The amount of time spent posting on here and searching the net, it could have been done and working.

Mad.

[cqueen]

jason s4 said:

Which is what i posted above.

Why dont you just get an electrician in to sort this???????????

The amount of time spent posting on here and searching the net, it could have been done and working.

Mad.

We posted above at exactly the same time.

I've already said - I've spoken to a couple of motor specialist companies about it - they were not interested. Typical sparks don't deal with 3 phase. Unless you can reccomend someone?

Add to that, whenever I speak to a spark they say "why dont you just buy a converter?", whenever I speak to a company that sells converters they say "why dont you just get it re-wired?".

Mad? very!

Edited by cqueen on Saturday 15th October 19:25

[thinfourth2]

Did you speak to drives direct?

[dave144]

cqueen said:

Nothing else going in/out of the top of the unit.

Judging by the size of the transformer i'd say it's a 240V primary 24V secondary transformer?

[cqueen]

dave144 said:

Judging by the size of the transformer i'd say it's a 240V primary 24V secondary transformer?

[freecar]

I think I know what you need to do, undo the wiring on the machines plug, take the live wires and rewire into a 4 pin plug.

Take a 13amp 240v supply and spur the N feed off, connect this to the spare wire from the original 5 pin plug. That way any single phase devide inside can have it's L and N feeds to work.


Al the above is purely a guess and here to merely foster debate!

[dave144]

cqueen said:

The Siemens transformer is illustrated on the wiring diagram in the middle with the two motors either side. There is one line coming down from the top (incoming 3ph supply) so this indicates it is a 240v incoming supply which is then transformed into 24v which supplies the gas/control side of things.

Instead of using a static converter could you have not bought 4 inverter drives which tend to have soft start capabilites?

Silly question but what are the motor overloads set at?

[jason s4]

cqueen said:

We posted above at exactly the same time.

I've already said - I've spoken to a couple of motor specialist companies about it - they were not interested. Typical sparks don't deal with 3 phase. Unless you can reccomend someone?

Add to that, whenever I speak to a spark they say "why dont you just buy a converter?", whenever I speak to a company that sells converters they say "why dont you just get it re-wired?".

Mad? very!

Edited by cqueen on Saturday 15th October 19:25

Fair enough.

[mikR]

dave144 said:

The Siemens transformer is illustrated on the wiring diagram in the middle with the two motors either side. There is one line coming down from the top (incoming 3ph supply) so this indicates it is a 240v incoming supply which is then transformed into 24v which supplies the gas/control side of things.

Instead of using a static converter could you have not bought 4 inverter drives which tend to have soft start capabilites?

Silly question but what are the motor overloads set at?

The Overloads are set at each individual motors "full load current (FLC)" the FLC can be read directly from the motors rating plate.

A silenced generator or a converter with a TP&N (Triple Pole & Neutral) supply is what you need.