What's new
What's new

Hardinge HLV-H

Status
Not open for further replies.

nomarq

Plastic
Joined
Sep 30, 2005
Location
Oakland, CA
Hi everyone, I am in the market of purchasing a used Hardinge HLV-H, 220v 3ph 1hp 60cycle, it will be placed in my garage that only have a 220 single phase, I need an opinion what type of transformer/inverter I can use to run this equipment, of course it will be installed by a professional electrician.
Thanks a lot
Nomar
 
You'll need a phase perfect or a rotary phase convertor to convert your single phase power to three pahse, or change the motor in the lathe to a single phase unit.
 
The main drive motor in that lathe is very special, very expensive, and worth keeping, rather than replacing with something inferior. Do not even consider installing a single phase main drive motor.

The lathe has other electrical devices, including a power feed motor and a variable pitch pulley shifting motor, that makes it very complex to rewire for a VFD on the main motor. It has been done, but is beyond the capabilities of an average commercial electrician.

The simple solution is a rotary phase converter wired between the lathe input terminals and your home 220 V single phase supply. Nothing has to be rewired in the lathe and any electrician should be able to handle the job. As a bonus, you can run more than one three phase machine from one rotary phase converter, where a VFD has to be configured (programmed) for one specific motor.

Whether you use a rotary phase converter or a VFD, you have to be careful the first time you turn on the lathe. The one vital tricky bit is to make sure the spindle runs forward when the direction switch is in forward. Get it wrong and you could be in for a lot of work, so you check with the lathe running, but before you touch the speed control buttons. If wrong, two of the phase converter output wires have to be exchanged, quick and easy. A secondary tricky bit that does not risk serious trouble is to be sure the lathe's control transformer is wired across the phase converter's output wires that come straight from the house wiring. Those are the same two wires that you reverse if the lathe runs backward.

I think the company that made my phase converter is out of business, but it still works fine after decades of use. Here is a current maker, if you want to find out what they cost. fortwayne.craigslist.org/tls/d/3-phase-converters/6446282482.html Pump Motors | Swigart Electric Motors, Inc. | Englewood, Ohio

Larry
 
What Larry said.

This one is the exact opposite of a 10EE where ALL one has is a "naked" final-drive motor and a don't-care coolant pump that could be replaced with anything, hamster on a treadmill onward.

Lots of "stuff" not only built-in, but in the Hardinge add-on category that expects the electricals that Hardinge shipped it with.

RPC bare minimum. Phase-Perfect if you can afford it. VFD for some other machine, thanks.
 
I know a good maintenance tech who lives in Berkeley and works all over northern CA. Private message me your phone number and name and I'll let him know. He can usually figure things out in less than an hour. Thats why he bills per 15 minutes. Rich

PS: He is also is an excellent machinist and has a small shop of his own.
 
FWIW, mine came in with a 600V. 3 phase motor, which is the original.Not wanting to touch anything in the control panel, I bought a phase converter and a 600v, 3 phase transformer; I got help from an expert, and everything was working in less than 1 hr. Although I didn't need them that big, the transformer is capable of 5kva, and the converter of 5hp, so I could run more than one machine if I wanted.
I have them both below the garage floor, so I can barely hear the converter.
 

Attachments

  • _DSC1316.JPG
    _DSC1316.JPG
    75.1 KB · Views: 112
  • _DSC1317.JPG
    _DSC1317.JPG
    70.7 KB · Views: 134
All I did with mine was make an RPC with a 3 hp 208 or 240 Volt motor. There are posts elsewhere here on how to wire one up. Modified the start circuit with a time delay relay which removes the start capacitor after one second. Voltage is 240 three phase which won't bother the electrics or drive motor in the 208Volt Hardinge. Only problem is the panel lights are BRIGHT!
 
I am interested in the experts supporting their recommendations. Vance and Monarchist have recommended away from a VFD. JR says VFD like I said. Is there something about the Hardinge design that precludes a VFD and if so, what?

Tom
 
I am interested in the experts supporting their recommendations. Vance and Monarchist have recommended away from a VFD. JR says VFD like I said. Is there something about the Hardinge design that precludes a VFD and if so, what?

Tom
"The lathe has other electrical devices, including a power feed motor and a variable pitch pulley shifting motor, that makes it very complex to rewire for a VFD on the main motor. It has been done, but is beyond the capabilities of an average commercial electrician."

Was that too complicated to understand? Try this: If you can figure out how to put a VFD between the switching relays/drum switches and the spindle motor and still be able to run the feed motor, speed changing motor and electric brake (maybe a coolant pump, too) while maintaining the original operating control functions without wrecking the VFD, go for it. As I said, it has been done, but it takes a really sharp industrial wiring expert. I saw a description of how it was done somewhere online, so maybe you can find it. Remember, the lathe has a constant power variable speed system, so the variable frequency feature of the VFD has little to offer. You would wire the VFD only to the high speed windings of the spindle motor and not use the low speed windings. The VFD would be set to 60 HZ for the high speed range and set to 20 HZ for the low speed range. You would end up with less HP in the low range than if you fed 60 HZ to the low speed windings. And the motor would not run very smoothly at 20 HZ, so you could run just the low speed windings, at 60 HZ for the low speed range and at 180 HZ for the high speed range. The VFD programming for HP and FLA can only be set for one set of motor windings. I suppose you could wire two VFD's, one for each speed range, and leave both VFD's set at 60 HZ for only twice as much cost, but you still have to figure out how to run the other electrical gear.

The person with a VFD running a 220 V three phase bandsaw, which probably has just one motor with an on-off switch and no reverse, is quite correct that it is the simplest solution for such a simple machine if you want variable speed. You can even run a 220 V three phase motor as large as 1HP from 115 V single phase right off your wall outlet, which is really cool. I have a Hardinge HSL lathe that I set up with a new 220 V 1 HP three phase motor and exactly that type of VFD and even included a forward-reverse switch. It works very well indeed.

But my Hardinge TFB-H (same wiring as an HLV-H) is run from a rotary phase converter and I never had to alter the OEM internal wiring. That is the simple solution.

Larry
 
I am interested in the experts supporting their recommendations. Vance and Monarchist have recommended away from a VFD. JR says VFD like I said. Is there something about the Hardinge design that precludes a VFD and if so, what?

Tom

Larry covered it, and covered it well. It IS their design. The Hardinge is not alone, either. I have a similar challenge with a Cazeneuve HBX-360-BC that began life as a hydraulic-assisted tracer lathe.

I'll either be using a Phase Perfect instead of RPC, or converting to DC if the primary drive motor is bad.
 
From a Hardinge owner, me.

A simple rotary converter using a 3hp or 5hp idler motor is all you need. A VFD with variable speed control sounds spiffy, but the pulley drive system in the Hardinge cabinet is what you should use. If you take notice, inside the motor cabinet door there is a message plate that says to run the speed control from the lowest to highest speed daily.
 
Last edited:
"Was that too complicated to understand? Try this: If you can figure out how to put a VFD between the switching relays/drum switches and the spindle motor and still be able to run the feed motor, speed changing motor and electric brake (maybe a coolant pump, too) while maintaining the original operating control functions without wrecking the VFD, go for it."

I don't understand what's that complicated.

1) put the varispeed sheaves mid-range.

2) hardwire the spindle motor for high range.

3) the feed motor is a *dc* motor. It's run off single phase. No need to feed it via the VFD.

4) coolant pump? Few HLVH owners use that, but a static converter would would be fine for that if one insisted.

Yes. The owner needs to understand how to wire up a VFD direct to the spindle motor, and remove all the
items inside the box on the left side of the machine. Yes, the owner will have to be minimally conversant with
electricity.

Pro electrician? Maybe. Most lathe owners would do this on their own, at least the ones who cross over between
the 'lectrics and VFDs sub-board, and the hardinge sub-board.
 
"Was that too complicated to understand? Try this: If you can figure out how to put a VFD between the switching relays/drum switches and the spindle motor and still be able to run the feed motor, speed changing motor and electric brake (maybe a coolant pump, too) while maintaining the original operating control functions without wrecking the VFD, go for it."

I don't understand what's that complicated.

1) put the varispeed sheaves mid-range.

2) hardwire the spindle motor for high range.

3) the feed motor is a *dc* motor. It's run off single phase. No need to feed it via the VFD.

4) coolant pump? Few HLVH owners use that, but a static converter would would be fine for that if one insisted.

Yes. The owner needs to understand how to wire up a VFD direct to the spindle motor, and remove all the
items inside the box on the left side of the machine. Yes, the owner will have to be minimally conversant with
electricity.

Pro electrician? Maybe. Most lathe owners would do this on their own, at least the ones who cross over between
the 'lectrics and VFDs sub-board, and the hardinge sub-board.

OK. You can do it.

What you have is not an improvement as to cost, maintainability, functionality, reliability, nor ease of use.

The opposite, all counts, actually. May as well "mess with Texas".

So WHY do it?
 
OK. You can do it.

What you have is not an improvement as to cost, maintainability, functionality, reliability, nor ease of use.

The opposite, all counts, actually. May as well "mess with Texas".

So WHY do it?

Look. My HLVH runs on utility three phase so I don't NEED to do that. But I understand the niceties of VFDS and also rotary
converters. I use both at home.

Advantages to the VFD in that lathe are:

1) stand alone unit. No need for any outboard electrics. Just plug it in. Do it right and it will run off 120 volts.

2) variable speed at the turn of a knob. A small knob. A knob that doesn't involve moving a leadscrew.

3) varispeed unit in mid-range is least loss.

Disadvantages:

1) you cannot plug reverse the motor. (one reason I've never abandoned the (in)famous stone age converter in the basement).

2) if you do as I suggest and gut the goods out of the control cabinet to make room for the VFD then you'll have a tough
time re-installing it if you ever get it to a place with factory 3 phase. (another location would be the lowest level in the right hand
cabinet, though the wiring would be more complicated.

3) yep you need to think about what you're doing when retrofitting a lathe like that. Get help if you feel out of your depth.

Again, this isn't building a quantum computer. All the parts and wiring are well understood and decades old.
 
Advantages to the VFD in that lathe are:
..
Disadvantages:
..

That was a better balanced view, thanks.

There seems to be a virus afoot where every time a lathe changes hands it has to get a VFD, a QCTP, and a complete tear-down to bare metal accompanied by aggressive use of corrosives and abrasives if not also, someday maybe, some new experiment with race, tribe, and sexual persuasion of a paint no one else has yet tried out.

Sometimes we should just not mess.
 
The OEM variable speed drive in the lathe is constant power from the lowest to highest speed (375 to 3000 RPM with the high speed motor windings in use).

A VFD is constant torque (power varies with speed) from 0 to 60 HZ (motor nameplate HZ rating in the USA). You have zero power at 0 HZ, then 1/10 power (and very rough running) at 6 HZ and 1/3 power at 20 HZ and so on until you finally have full power at 60 HZ and up. That is why it is a good plan to leave the OEM speed control functional instead of putting it at half speed and disconnecting the OEM speed controls. Power is what determines the maximum rate of metal removal, so loss of power causes a loss of productivity from needing multiple passes taking tiny cuts. And it not a good thing to stall the spindle by taking a cut too heavy for the available power. I have broken some carbide lathe tools when that happened.

You can get around the low power at low HZ issue by installing a new motor with a higher power rating and/or a lower RPM at 60 HZ rating. The Hardinge HSL I rebuilt has a 1 HP motor and VFD instead of the OEM 1/2 HP single speed 1750 RPM motor. I would have used a 1 HP at 875 or 1175 RPM motor, but their frames are too large to fit the lathe. I have the VFD parameters set to allow frequencies of 20 to 120 HZ. There are also three steps on the pulleys, so I have a 375-3000 RPM range of spindle speeds with at least the normal rating of 1/2 HP (mostly the full 1 HP) and a 250 to 375 RPM speed range varying from 1/3 to 1/2 HP. The OEM drive gave only three speeds: 750, 1500 and 3000 RPM at 1/2 HP. So I do like a VFD for a single motor step pulley machine, but not for an HLV-H with its OEM motor still in place.

Larry
 
Status
Not open for further replies.








 
Back
Top