Slightly OT - Thor Drill

Last Saturday I went to an auction. Some interesting buys - a W&S #4 Turret lathe for $35, large band saw for about the same, a Cincinnati 3S with a bunch of tooling for $70.

Among a few other things, I bought the contents of the back wall shelving for a net of $2.50 - mainly to get the three new keyway broaches, 5 bushings, 8 woodruff key cutters and a bunch of lathe bits. Trouble was the entire contents filled up the whole bed of my 1/2 ton pickup as I dug through the pile.

One item in particular is this Thor hand held drill - just threw it in the truck. Once I got home and spent two days plowing through everything I got to looking at it - why 4 wires in the cord (no plug). So I finally look at the data plate. 800 RPM, 220 volts, 2.3 amps - and 3 phase with '180 cycle' and then 'High Frequency Drive' across the top. If you look close it looks like remnants of OD green paint.

This one is a mystery to me. In my working life - both military and aerospace - I've been around a lot of different 'flavors' of power. But I don't remember ever seeing a configuration like this.

Will post some not so great phone pictures - if better would help can add later.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks.

Dale

There were concrete work generators that made 180hz 3 phase. That enabled smaller, lighter weight high speed tools, particularly concrete vibrators. It looks like Thor had the same idea for drilling equipment- use an induction motor for hand-held tools, but increase the frequency to reduce the motor size.

https://books.google.com/books?id=u...wjz#v=onepage&q=thor drill 180 cycles&f=false

Kitno455 -

Thanks for the information and link. I had tried searching but had not come up with anything.

Now the question - scrap it out or leave it so in 20 years somebody else can puzzle at the thing!

Dale

duckfarmer27 said:

Kitno455 -

Thanks for the information and link. I had tried searching but had not come up with anything.

Now the question - scrap it out or leave it so in 20 years somebody else can puzzle at the thing!

Dale

Click to expand...

NNOOOOOHH!! You need to find a 220 V, 180 Cycle, 3 phase generator and hook it to a 240 Volt 60 cycle motor so you can use it.

Paul

Hmmm, I have a regular 1/2 120V thor drill, nice tool.

180 Cycle, I wonder if that might have been made to use with some kind of aircraft GPU. Perhaps for some kind of service, like extending flaps or landing gear etc.. Just a wild assed guess on my part

Get a small~1HP VFD and make your own 180 cycle 3 Phase.

3¢

Fein still makes that sort of equipment. 400Hz though. They sell a fiendishly expensive VFD which has some sort of spcial sockets where you plug the machines in. The entire system is insanely expensive. But you get angle grinders no larger than usual but several horsepowers strong, without brushes and probably (never actually seen this stuff for real, just know that they sell it ) relatively silent.

WHHJR said:

Get a small~1HP VFD and make your own 180 cycle 3 Phase.

3¢

Click to expand...

WHHJR -

Now that is an elegant solution I did not think of. In the next couple of months I have to get a VFD going for my brother - have never messed with one yet. Will have to have that as part of the learning curve on that project.

Of course the thing is I have no idea if the drill is operable or just an anchor. But it would be a 'mountain gator' of a drill and not too common if it worked.

Dale

Just be sure the drive you use will supply the current needs of the drill. Most drives will handle that frequency. Just follow the drive documentation setup procedure and set the parameters to match the nameplate and go from there...
4¢

Thor made excellent tools. I have a 1/4" cap'y 120 V universal-motor electric drill that belonged to my father.

I also have the generator-set you need, Homelite 2-stroke 3600RPM 180Hz, not sure of the voltage. Mine is in pieces as I started to work on it years ago, planning to cut out some poles to lower the freq.

Your drill should run ok on 60 Hz, just at 1/3 nameplate speed.....I am not sure if voltage would have to be adjusted to get full torque, or if slow fan speed would cause cooling issues

magneticanomaly said:

I also have the generator-set you need, Homelite 2-stroke 3600RPM 180Hz, not sure of the voltage. Mine is in pieces as I started to work on it years ago, planning to cut out some poles to lower the freq.

Click to expand...

Magnetic -

This site never ceases to amaze me - I figured at some point some owner of the proper generator would show up!

At some point this winter when I run out of other things to do (right - that will never happen) I'll stick a plug on the end of this and see if it rotates using my RPC. If it works, might be an interesting project to rig up a small box with a VFD to run the drill. I don't really need another 1/2 inch drill but at 220 volts, 2.3 amps, 180 Hz that 800 RPM drill might be useful at times.

I have to kick this habit I've developed this summer of buying walls of stuff at auctions for cheap - running out of space!

Dale

Thor Power Tool Co. v. Commissioner

Thor Power Tool Co. was the plaintiff in a US Supreme Court tax case of great consequence. The ruling made it very expensive to carry inventories of slow-selling spare parts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Power_Tool_Co._v._Commissioner

Thor may have had "product lines" of different quality levels. I have a small single-phase Thor bench grinder which I consider to be homeowner grade.

JOhn Ruth

Thor History

http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1985

Reader Question: The History Of Thor | Toolmonger

Plant photo:

Aurora Pump was founded in 1920, but its Aurora geneology can be viewed as going much further back

Photos of old Thor products in-dispersed with new stuff:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en....0....0...1ac.1.64.img..0.16.1646.xQWRU_GvdGc

Paul

Could a three phase "idler" motor be mechanically spun at three times nameplate speed by using a motor slaved to it with appropriate V-belt and pulleys generate 180hz power?