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Running Dialog 4 Control on single phase

mTeryk

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Location
corvallis,or
So I've finally got my FP2NC back. Well, actually I've had it all along but the conditions in my last shop made it all but unusable with the cold temperatures and weak, variable power. It really felt like abuse with how often the control would crash that I pretty much stopped using it all together. I've got a new shop with better power and things are looking up.

One thing that bothers me is the noise of my rotary phase converter. I'd really like to quiet it down and thinking that I will eventually move it out to the shed as a Phase Perfect just isn't in the budget. I've noticed something interesting, however, and I want to get the opinion of those more versed in the electrical internals of Deckels.

My power supply setup is 220V to an American Rotary 10hp phase converter to a 3 phase 220v -> 400v 3 transformer. I get about 384 Volts to the mill. When I was battling electrical issues last year I attempted to make sure that the control was isolated from the generated leg of the transformer. In reality this wasn't possible because the 3 phase transformer shares coils between the phases so fluctuations in any leg affect the voltage of the other legs. As an extreme example, if I turn the rotary off, I get ~335v from the two other legs.

One night as I was heading out I forgot to turn the mill control off before turning off the phase converter.... and it kept running. I could change modes, edit programs etc. Obviously I couldn't run the spindle or table feeds but everything else seemed to work until the way oil pump came on due to the timer and it crashed the control.

So my question, If I found a way to disable the hydraulic pump timer, could I power down the rotary phase converter while programming, editing and moving programs back and forth to quiet things down and only power it up when needed or is the 13% voltage drop going to damage the control? As I am typing this, it sounds like a stupid idea and I will probably just forge ahead with moving the rotary out to the shed. From a curiosity perspective, however, I would still be interested in learning what the possible repercussions of undervolting the control by that much would be.

Teryk
 
Wow, you really do mean single phase. I was all set to explain how nicely my D4 runs on single phase, but through a 10-hp American Rotary. My rotary is set up to disconnect all three power legs if the rotary is shut off by pressing the button on the converter box. I have never tried to see if the electronics will stay alive on true single phase, and I am not sure I can do that without jury-rigging something. I usually power down the machine by turning off the control, then the main disconnect on the cabinet, then the disconnect feeding the 380-V transformer, and then the rotary. I have turned off the rotary first a couple of times, but that disconnects all three legs to the transformer, so really no difference.

That said, I don't see a 13% voltage drop as particularly problematic, as long as the power supplies can make the needed low-voltage DC where needed by the electronics. I suggest you measure the DC voltages in the cabinet and console, very carefully, of course.
 
New Shop....Time for new power....Two words: Phase Perfect

Silent, almost zero draw when idling, can run multi machines off one unit....Can get them that are weather tight and can be located outside...so it won't take any of your valuable shop space.
Not really expensive if considered as an investment over the life of your machines....Sort of like tooling...
Cheers Ross
 
The Dialog control only hangs on one leg of the 380V, so through a transformer it can run from 220 single phase.

I had a Phase Perfect. My only, but to me significant, complaint was an annoying high pitched whistle, I could not stand. So I "drilled" (dry-wall) a hole in the garage wall to the (un-used) master bedroom walk-in closet and put it there. That worked fine and when I sold it, it still looked new.
 
My only, but to me significant, complaint was an annoying high pitched whistle, I could not stand.
Same experience here. Seems they could have moved the oscillator frequency up a few kHz and put it out of human hearing range. Maybe the dog would howl. I would not call the thing silent, still a huge huge improvement over the stupid rotary phase converter.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a PP one of these days. It'll have to wait till I recover a bit from the house purchase. If I had a time machine I would go tell my former self to just buy one, rather than the two rotaries and two vfd's I've bought since getting into this trade.

I'm about to relocate the air compressor to the shed so current plan is to do the rotary and transformer at the same time. Should make upgrading to a PP down the line straightforward and avoid any annoying whistles should there be any.

T
 
I had a Phase Perfect. My only, but to me significant, complaint was an annoying high pitched whistle, I could not stand..

Have been told this from others...For me i can't heat the whine if its there....Likely hearing loss form my time in a combat mortar section in The Marines...
What i do hear that is annoying is the servo whine of my machines when standing still with power up....Wonder if i could put the servos in the next room?
Cheers Ross
 
I wonder if it is how the PP is mounted as to the sound it produces.?
Mine sounds like bacon sizzling (yum). After listening to the drone of a rpc for years ,janky ouptut at best, the Pp is my second most important piece of equipment in the shop.
 
Another thumps up on the Phase Perfect, you won't look back. A plus is the high resell value. When I moved into a shop with 3 phase, I sold the PP for close to what I purchased it for.
 
Another thumps up on the Phase Perfect, you won't look back. A plus is the high resell value. When I moved into a shop with 3 phase, I sold the PP for close to what I purchased it for.

No Phase Perfect here but what about all the threads on the ones they no longer support that people can't repair? If one gets to that point in my mind it's just another door stop. OTOH I have a shop built rotary phase I have been using for 25+ years without a single snag, total cost was around $150. I did however build a house behind the shop for it and my air compressor so that cost (maybe a $1,000 material and labor) should be considered but still a big difference in cost.

Never tried it on a machine but wonder if there would be a isolation problem with the phases if one hooked the control up direct to the single phase and used the 3 phase for only the drives. Some machines only need 120 volts for the control in my understanding.
Dan
 
Never tried it on a machine but wonder if there would be a isolation problem with the phases if one hooked the control up direct to the single phase and used the 3 phase for only the drives. Some machines only need 120 volts for the control in my understanding.
Dan

I'd like to know this about Dialog 4s also, would allow me to keep my control on without the spindle motor fan running 24/7. It would also allow use of a UPS on the control, and perhaps provide cleaner power than from the 3 phase?
 
My rotary is set up to disconnect all three power legs if the rotary is shut off by pressing the button on the converter box. I have never tried to see if the electronics will stay alive on true single phase, and I am not sure I can do that without jury-rigging something. I usually power down the machine by turning off the control, then the main disconnect on the cabinet, then the disconnect feeding the 380-V transformer, and then the rotary. I have turned off the rotary first a couple of times, but that disconnects all three legs to the transformer, so really no difference.

I am really curious about the differences between our RPCs, since they are both 10hp American Rotarys. Mine is the CNC version but not heavy duty. Did you modify the install to get that behavior?. In the picture below from the install manual it shows L1 and L2 (single phase in) directly connected to T1 and T2 (3 phase out), no disconnect. This is how mine is wired and why I can turn off the rotary and still have single phase power for the mill on T1 and T2.

ARPC_wiring.png



That said, I don't see a 13% voltage drop as particularly problematic, as long as the power supplies can make the needed low-voltage DC where needed by the electronics. I suggest you measure the DC voltages in the cabinet and console, very carefully, of course.

I'll go through and test voltages just for fun, but I suspect I'll see voltage drops across the board. I'll probably just put up with the noise until I move it out to the shed or get a PP. I'm so happy it's running well that I can put up with a little noise for awhile.

T
 








 
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