K O LEE B360 / VFD Choice

First, thank to all who post on PM. So much to learn here.

Last year I acquired a K.O.Lee B360 for tool sharpening. I use mostly lathes and milling machines. The grinder was covered in sawdust and lite surface rust but in excellent condition, the lubrication was still working and sliding surfaces proved to be good too. Most of the standard accessories were there along with the basic attachments.

I have no Grinder experience, this is the machine i will learn with.

In the past few months the grinder has been undergoing cleanup and painting and I am now thinking about how to power it. I will be working thru a local motor supplier to make final selection on what drive to use. The motor is three phase and ..... I have only single phase, 110 volt. Adding 220 to the shop is possible but I'm stuck with single phase.

I have been reading up here and other sources on VFDs for phase conversion but can't possibly say I've read it all. Single phase, 110 volts to three phase 220 volts is my first choice. Does anyone have direct experience they can share with this or similar combination? Any problems or things to look out for?

Motor name plate data:
Model - B924GL
Frame - 37
Type - K
Amps - 14-.7
Temperature Rise - 55 C
H.P. - 1/2
Volts - 230-460
Cycles - 50/60
RPM - 3450
General number - LM

A few photos:

For that horsepower the 120V drives should work fine. Everyone seems to look for the cheapest drive,then pays a bunch of money for a Hoffman box large enough to keep the grinding dust out of it, then wonders how to put a window in it so they can see the display. My advice is just buy a AC Tech drive in a dust-proof NEMA 4X enclosure, and be done with it. I've been running a 3HP version for a couple years; absolutely trouble free. No big deal to integrate remote switches and speed control either.

AC Drive, 1/2hp, 12-24V, Single Phase, NEMA 4X Indoor Only

Dennis

I would not worry too much, about variable speed control.

Overspeeding some rocks.... Could be bad for operator and spindle...

$$$$ Hoffman box not needed, A .50 ammo can works well.. Mount bottom of can to wall.. Use a Hoffman box for commercial use of course.

Remember 120 v drives do not work with GFCI circuits (will trip due to VFD stray current). To avoid using a GFCI on that circuit per code. Hard wire VFD line input to circuit (VFD after CB/disconnect/fuse protection IAW VFD manual).. A 120 v shop/bath/wet receptacle is what requires a GFCI.

Any decent VFD, will have built in ground fault detection..

mach2 said:

First, thank to all who post on PM. So much to learn here.

Last year I acquired a K.O.Lee B360 for tool sharpening. I use mostly lathes and milling machines. The grinder was covered in sawdust and lite surface rust but in excellent condition, the lubrication was still working and sliding surfaces proved to be good too. Most of the standard accessories were there along with the basic attachments.

I have no Grinder experience, this is the machine i will learn with.

In the past few months the grinder has been undergoing cleanup and painting and I am now thinking about how to power it. I will be working thru a local motor supplier to make final selection on what drive to use. The motor is three phase and ..... I have only single phase, 110 volt. Adding 220 to the shop is possible but I'm stuck with single phase.

I have been reading up here and other sources on VFDs for phase conversion but can't possibly say I've read it all. Single phase, 110 volts to three phase 220 volts is my first choice. Does anyone have direct experience they can share with this or similar combination? Any problems or things to look out for?

Motor name plate data:
Model - B924GL
Frame - 37
Type - K
Amps - 14-.7
Temperature Rise - 55 C
H.P. - 1/2
Volts - 230-460
Cycles - 50/60
RPM - 3450
General number - LM

Click to expand...

You'll really, really, want 220/240 VAC for a shop anyway. Motor loads on one 120 V side of a 240 V residential service are not pleasant - this item or any other.

Get that in-work first, then take advantage of a wider choice of options.

+1 on ready-made NEMA 4X & 'washdown' ratings WITH factory Certs & Warranty. High-volume items by now, price premium is good value-for-money, saves reinventing a common wheel.

Bill

I have used several of the drives that automation direct sells with good success and they are reasonably priced. Probably cheap Chinese drives but they work well and I don't ask any more. Good documentation too. As far as getting a drive with a nema rating I bet you'll will be at at least an order of magnitude more expensive. Additionally, you will need a separate disconnect anyway, unless you get it with the drive in which case you are looking at more than an order of magnitude increase in price. I put mine in a nema box, no window though, I like my drives to have their privacy, I trust that they know how to get the job done. Fan w/ filtered inlet yes need that. I have a watch on this box on ebay, I planned to make him an offer, but found I already had a suitable box for my current project. This one has s disconnect and some other goodies in it. Offer him $60?

NEMA 19 x 19 x 8 Enclosure Backplate Fuji BU ECA Acme Transformer Omron 24 VDC | eBay

Pete Deal said:

I have used several of the drives that automation direct sells with good success and they are reasonably priced. Probably cheap Chinese drives but they work well and I don't ask any more. Good documentation too. As far as getting a drive with a nema rating I bet you'll will be at at least an order of magnitude more expensive. Additionally, you will need a separate disconnect anyway, unless you get it with the drive in which case you are looking at more than an order of magnitude increase in price. I put mine in a nema box, no window though, I like my drives to have their privacy, I trust that they know how to get the job done. Fan w/ filtered inlet yes need that. I have a watch on this box on ebay, I planned to make him an offer, but found I already had a suitable box for my current project. This one has s disconnect and some other goodies in it. Offer him $60?

NEMA 19 x 19 x 8 Enclosure Backplate Fuji BU ECA Acme Transformer Omron 24 VDC | eBay

Click to expand...

Each 'order of magnitude' is X 10, Pilgrim.

All but ONE of my many KB drives are in NEMA 4X. The price premium was about a hundred bucks, as I am happy to snatch up on-sale, closeouts/discontinued. and overstock deals. That wasn't even double their base cost, let alone times-ten.

Further, I simply cannot be BOTHERED to hunt-up never-quite FREE Hoffman o/e enclosures to save but half of the hundred bucks at a larger-cube downgrade to NEMA 1 - if savings are even as much as half.

Most decent enclosures are $50 or more, even used, then may need knock-out plugs, dents hammered out, de-rust, and a touch of rattle-can paint. NEW Hoffmans o/e can cost nearly as much as the drive does. Then one wants to cut 'windows' and add perspex or glass, elastomeric seals? And now it is too effing large to mount right AT the machine tool as well, so we have to 'remote' the controls, too?

RTFM -sizes are in there - and recognize that the VFD or DC Drive maker require them to be LARGE enclosures, too, compared to a NEMA 4X with built-in cooling fins, R&D and testing the maker, not you, has already paid-for and rolled-in to ALL their pricing.

Even so, no DIY enclosure will have tested protection, rated cooling, UL/CSA/TuV factory certs, and a 12 to 18 month warranty. Not even if you build it 'by the book' as to cube and such. Why give an inch-hoorance company any cause at all to deny a possible claim over small money?

Bottom Line?

Just thank the food service industry & c. for making VFD & DC Drive NEMA 4X 'washdown' cheaper than it once was, and JF take advantage of those costs being off-loaded onto larger-volume players arredy.

Bill

Pete Deal said:

...Additionally, you will need a separate disconnect anyway, unless you get it with the drive in which case you are looking at more than an order of magnitude increase in price....

Click to expand...

At 1/2 HP, the service cord plug can be the disconnect.

Dennis

abarnsley said:

...
$$$$ Hoffman box not needed, A .50 ammo can works well.. Mount bottom of can to wall.. Use a Hoffman box for commercial use of course.

Click to expand...

Intersting side note on that comment.

"Hoffman" was the enclosure division of Federal Cartridge Company in Anoka, Minn. The guy who owned Federal, Charles Horn, was a close personal friend and and hunting buddy of Henry Ford . As the story goes, some time after WWI they were out hunting once when Ford commented on the new gasketed steel ammo cans Horn had developed for the army after observing how they kept the ammo clean and dry throughout the trip. Ford had been approached by his engineers about an ongoing issue in keeping their productivity up because of frequent electrical failures. Ford said he wished he had something like the ammo cans to put his electrical controls in for the factories, because the big cast iron boxes used at the time were inconvenient to get in and out of and didn't keep out machine oil or moisture. So he took some of the Federal cans back with him for his factory engineers to play with. They made comments and suggestions to make them more usable for electrical equipment and Horn gave the task of designing something for Ford to his chief engineer in charge of ammo cans, who's name was... Hoffman! Since they wanted it to be a separate company and not tied to the government contract ammo business, Horn created Hoffman Engineering Co. as a separate entity. But for decades right up until the 1980s, the factory was on the same campus as the munitions factory, so when you wanted something shipped out fast, it was an issue because only 2 specific licensed shipping companies were allowed in and out of the facility.

Monarchist said:

Each 'order of magnitude' is X 10, Pilgrim.


Bill

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Gee thanks for the math lesson Mr Wayne! 2 engineering degrees and i missed that.

I have not seen decent deals on NEMA wash down inverters aside from watching ebay for a maybe good one. Why not put a link to one and I will buy one too next time. The 1hp Automation direct GS1 drive that just came today, that will need an enclosure, cost me $134 brand new in the box.

And, Modelman, about unplugging to shut stuff off, Maybe in your shop that's how you do things. I don't.

Pete Deal said:

And, Modelman, about unplugging to shut stuff off, Maybe in your shop that's how you do things. I don't.

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I only disconnect power to te several VFDs in the shop when an electrical storm is blowing through. Otherwise, the "Off" control for the VFD is used. The Electronics stay in good condition this way. The cord plug is just the "safety" disconnect on those that have them (fractional HP)

The circuit breakers work for the rest.

Pete Deal said:

Gee thanks for the math lesson Mr Wayne! 2 engineering degrees and i missed that.

I have not seen decent deals on NEMA wash down inverters aside from watching ebay for a maybe good one. Why not put a link to one and I will buy one too next time. The 1hp Automation direct GS1 drive that just came today, that will need an enclosure, cost me $134 brand new in the box.

And, Modelman, about unplugging to shut stuff off, Maybe in your shop that's how you do things. I don't.

Click to expand...

So it seems. Shuddna stopped with wotever the University threw your way, then. "Unplugging" isn't for ordinary ON/OFF switching atall.

So long as close enough to the 'device' it can let a person meet code without need of a costlier bespoke 'disconnect', that's all. Think electric range and clothes-dryer outlets as perhaps the most common ones of all. Most don't need unplugged but once in several years - now and then a decade or more.

As to affordable VFD OR DC Drive goods, however cased?

Wolf, Automation Direct, Drives Warehouse - others among the 'usual suspects' all compete. No one among them "ALWAYS" has the best deals.

Most of mine were from Galco, partly because their prices are 'good enough' and their website is more helpful to MY style of use than some others as to FINDING information, opportunities, and accessories.

YMMV on that.

$134 VFD?

Good on yah, but I'm suspicious of anything less than a bit over double that.

I like install-and-forget goods that have a track record for simple durability more than any other 'feature'.

I do NOT like every device under-roof having a different control panel and programming setup. Most of mine being KB-Penta, I've tended to stick with that, whether they are the 'best' or not. I also style the panels of any DIY I cannot avoid to use their switches, elastomer boots, potentiometers, dial knobs & c. - even the layout.

Reduces confusion in machine-tool use. Also in setup, spares, and service.

Bill

Well this is my second automation direct drive and really they look pretty good. The first one is on a cold saw has worked well so far. We have one at work, a 10hp, that was bought and I had installed and it has been good so far too. I've used a lot of kb dc drives in the past but never done anything with their ac drives. I can't argue with what you say about standardizing I worked with a cutler hammer drive once that took me days to get the programming figured out. The Automation direct drives are pretty simple to program.

I highly recommend these KB Drives. Made in USA. I have installed 100's of these without one single issue. For simple speed control and phase conversion they can not be beat in my opinion. Plus you can hook it up 110 volts to start and if for some reason you want to run it off 220 it is very easy to do.

Pete Deal said:

The Automation direct drives are pretty simple to program.

Click to expand...

Once a body is FAMILIAR, they are all simple enough to program. Only a small percentage of the steps need 'touched'.

Until then, it is akin to trying to grok operating systems before Unix, CP/M, or MS/PCDOS existed.

They all got to their goals eventually, but few took the same roads, if they even used roads atall vs sea, rail, air ... or a virtualization of I Be Mpossible interstellar wormholes.



KB (and now others) using 'apparent' analog twisty-knobs or screwdriver-adjust trimpots on Vee Eff Dee as well as genuinely analog DC drives, I regard as both brilliant and overdue.

Shouldn't really have to learn a de-facto device-dependent machine-language or parse 170+ steps in a manual to simply increase or decrease 'whatever' by an electrical RCH.

That all-digital user-interface makes eminent sense for networked drives getting setup and mods over a bus from a 'puter or guy in a control booth, middle of a blue-jean dying op, rubber tire factory, refinery, animal feed processor, or such.

It drives Joe Average bugf**k on a one lone machine at a time - then the next - then the OTHER one -basis. most especially as they are bought as different brands, model lines within brands, AND then-also design-era & rev levels.

And then.. one has to find the manual and re-train all over again after several YEARS of not needing to touch the gadget at all?

By the time I pass 80 yrs of age - if still messing with any of this at all - the Dee Cee motors and dumb-as-rocks controllers I like NOW may have become a bleedin' mental-necessity.



Bill

I agree the trim pots are a nice change. I had used Baldor drives is the past and while the instructions Baldor provides for programing them was good compared to many others it was still a headache. Pots on the KDAC drive's are much welcomed. Also I do not think you can find a NEMA 4 drive at the price point of the KB's regardless of country of origin.

Pete Deal said:

And, Modelman, about unplugging to shut stuff off, Maybe in your shop that's how you do things. I don't.

Click to expand...

Oh, you want to turn it off? I had in mind you wanted a safety disconnect, for which at fractional horsepower, the service cord plug will suffice. It seems to me my refrigerator doesn't have a disconnect, nor my microwave, television, etc.

Anyway, for cost comparison, where do you get a VFD with a NEMA 1 enclosure that has a free disconnect?

Sorry some people got their panties in a bunch over my recommendation, but I'm really tired of seeing this same scenario over and over: Somebody posts a question, "I just bought a VFD, how do I mount it?" Someone tells them it needs to go in a box to keep the dust out. They freak when they find that a non-ventilated box needs to be something like 6X the volume of the VFD for convection cooling... "That's HUGE" they say. So someone else suggests they cut a hole in the box and install a muffin fan... of course thereby negating the dust protection afforded by the box. They then come back and ask, "How do I see the speed display?" Then we discuss strategies for adding a window.

Come on, guys. We're supposed to be skilled tradesmen here, even if we are not all electricians. Formulating a plan before starting the job is supposed to be second nature. Grinders make, by their nature, little airborne particles of metal. It might be useful to at least note that manufacturers do make a product designed to deal with this situation, even if you think you can do a kludge cheaper.

Dennis

Dennis: Good points. After all the discussion I still like the enclosure route. Yes it is a lot of work but I think it makes a much nicer result. And, you make a good point that in lots of equipment the controls do stay powered up, but I still put a disconnect on everything and shut it down when not in use. Lots of ways to skin this cat.

First, thanks to all who responded, You have all been very helpful.

Modelman
The enclosure advise is seriously being considered. I followed the link for your recommendation and found the specifications and manual most useful and understandable. I do want to see the display and at the machine. I will also pursue a dual input voltage. Right now 120v works with the shop electrical but 240v is in the future planning.

abarnsley
I'm not to concerned about variable speed control. I will use it for fine adjustment and let the belts and pulleys do the rest. I was not aware of the GFIC concern but now with the heads up I can plan a work around, Thanks.

Monarchist
I really, really, want 220/240 VAC for a shop, sound advise for sure....and will have it in the future. For the time being I will have to make due with 120.

Pete Deal
As mentioned I have found the automation direct documentation very good too.

Jraef
I will always like reading industrial history, so much to learn that way, thanks for that informed write up.

B-Mathews
I have heard of the KB Drives and will definitely look into them before I buy. Made in USA is always a good thing.

One more question: I would like to use the original start/stop, forward/reverse switching, not a deal breaker but just a preference. Can something like this be used with the VFD and if so where in relation to the VFD does it go, I would like it mounted on the grinder.

Attached are photos of the original drive and switching.

Thanks again.

[I have no Grinder experience, this is the machine i will learn with.]
Good grinding habits:
Use blotters.
Ring test wheels.
Stand to the side when staring.
Know RPM is correct for the wheels marking.
Wear approve safety glasses.
Good tip for grinding end mills is to have a few photos of ends for the various number of flutes.