4 speed motor help- wire ID?

Well, I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right forum but here I go. I recently acquired the remains of an old wood lathe that had a four speed spindle motor. Two issues. First there are only 9 motor leads and all the wiring diagrams I can find have more leads. Second, someone was nice enough to cut the wires so I have no idea which lead is what. Is there a surefire procedure to ring the winding and figure out what is what?

If there's a previous thread that I've missed kindly pass me the link.

Cheers,
Aaron

9 leads usually is a standard three phase motor able to be wired 208/230-460

Have never heard of a 4 speed motor, 4 speeds in the actual motor?

Was it possible someone stripped a step pulley drive with 4 grooves off the lathe and used a three phase motor with a VFD to run the lathe?

How many leads are shown on the diagram? I'm curious.

I think technically it consists of two 2 speed motors wound into one. If there isn't a decent method of figuring out the leads I expect it'll get filed in the scrap pile. Rewinding is probably out of the question $$$. Lemme see what I can do about uploading a picture or two.

Most such motors include two separate "consequent-pole" windings.

Each such winding operates by "pole-changing", and it is possible to have 2- and 4-poles in one winding and 6- and 12-poles in the other winding.

These windings operate in series ∆ and parallel Y mode.

Because the ∆ of one winding must be opened when the other winding is being used, each winding must, necessarily, have seven leads, the normal T1, T2, T3 and T4, T5, T6, but additionally T7. T7 is connected to T6 whenever that winding is being operated. Conversely, the other winding's T7 is disconnected from its T6 when that other winding is not being operated.

It is common to number these fourteen wires as T11, T12, T13, T14, T15, T16, T17, T21, T22, T23, T24, T25, T26 and T27.

Another possibility, but not in this particular case, based upon the nameplate data, is one consequent-pole winding (providing two of the speeds) and two additional Y windings (providing the two additional speeds for a total of four speeds). This requires seven wires for the consequent-pole winding and six wires for the two Y windings for a total of thirteen wires.

The Oliver patternmaker's wood lathes were famous for having four-speed motors, but in its case there were two consequent-pole windings, thereby saving slot space.

It is possible within a standard 36 slot motor to have any of the above, with the three phases evenly distributed over the 36 slots.

That previous discussion of a patternmaker's lathe can be found:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showpost.php?p=875157&postcount=13

Motors

Fay and Egan, yummy! Try a post over at the OWWM site. Old Wood Working Machines.
There are some very knowledgable guys over there, some one is bound to have a F & E motor to help you.
JB

Well you learn something everyday, a 4 speed motor.

Have never heard of a 4 speed motor, 4 speeds in the actual motor?

Click to expand...

You bet. Common in Pratt & Whitney Jig Bores.

John Oder

I actually spend most of my time over at the OWWM but some thought it better to post over here when it came to dealing with this motor issue.

How many lead should be out on this motor?

Is there a way to determine T1 from T14 since the tags are missing?

Four Speed motors are common on old wood turning lathes. I have two of them, an Oliver and a Blount. I have the Blount running on a VFD but have not tried to get the Oliver going. Mine have 14 wires, as I best remember.

Bruce Norton
Kingsport, Tn

Here is how Oliver implements its four-speed patternmaker's lathes:



Whenever the T1, ..., T6 winding is activated, for the two lowest speeds, T15 and T17 are opened and T7 is connected to T5.

Whenever the T11, ..., T16 winding is activated, for the two lowest speeds, T5 and T7 are opened and T17 is connected to T15.

This particular technique is employed in later model Olivers, which have an Oliver-patented motor controller, really a large sliding switch which effects the above-mentioned connections.

In this way, Oliver can obtain four speeds while using only two windings.

I have an ancient 4 speed motor rescued from a Herbert capstan lathe: It was direct drive to the spindle, no gearbox required. It's enormous: two strong guys would barely lift it, yet only 2.5 horsepower (on bottom, 12 pole speed).

There are twelve connections in my case. Anyone hazard a guess how many windings there would be? I presume 36, but I don't really understand these things. There's certainly enough copper to have kept an old-time small South American economy afloat for several days while they dug it out and brought it down to the coast on wheelbarrows... ;-)

Includes a zero speed switch -- for 'plugging' aka 'plug stopping', which I since found out means throwing it into reverse, and turning off the power at the moment the speed crosses through zero.
(rather grandly labelled "Brookhirst Igranic Electro Dynamic Plugging Relay" )

I think if I tried that I'd first have to bolt it down to a pretty heavy slab, or the rotational inertia of the rotor would cause the motor to perform multiple back-flips