Comments from Phase Perfect owners

[rbcmetalwork]

I've had a 10hp unit since 2009. No problems to report. I had a minor technical question when setting it up and the company was friendly and helpful. The sound doesn't bother me at all. I measured the leg to leg voltage. It is within 1 volt.

 

[Captdave]

In the next 1-2 years I plan on retiring from the airlines and moving up to the farm and building a building there for my toys. Getting 3 Phase that far back is cost prohibitive so no lost capital.

Now I just trying to decide if I should go with a 20 or 30 HP model. I know they can be configured in parallel as my needs grow but just need to decide on the base unit for now then can add another when/if needed.

 

[steve10778]

I have a 20hp Phase perfect, in service for about two years. I bought it used, and after about a year i had a problem. It would intermittently shut down. I called phase perfect, spoke with a service engineer did some tests and we came to the conclusion that the control board was at fault. So i braced my self for what i thought was coming, but to my surprise the board was about 580.00 us. It hasnt missed a beat yet, and i highly recommend these units. They put out power at better quality and tolerance than you would get from the utility.
If you knew what that rotary was doing to your power factor and phase angles you would probably cry, i checked mine with a power quality analyzer when i was doing the balancing, it just doesnt work. When you add in a 20hp lathe accellerating and decelerating you end up needing a huge hp rotary to keep the control on the lathe from browning out.

Great service, and a great product, i recommend it whole heartedly. runs a vf2, hl2, man bport, cnc knee, man toolroom lathe, man surface grinder. my air compressor is single phase.

steve

 

[Philabuster]

In the next 1-2 years I plan on retiring from the airlines and moving up to the farm and building a building there for my toys. Getting 3 Phase that far back is cost prohibitive so no lost capital.

Now I just trying to decide if I should go with a 20 or 30 HP model. I know they can be configured in parallel as my needs grow but just need to decide on the base unit for now then can add another when/if needed.

I was reading a large PP can be fed from a small circuit breaker if you have limited amp service available. It performs the same as a smaller model, but when you do add additional amp capacity by moving shop or adding another meter, the PP is ready to go just by upping the circuit breaker and associated wires for ampacity.

Major disadvantage to a rotary is they need to be sized to the load. Running a 1hp motor on a 30hp rotary is not recommended.

 

[johnoder]

7 years this year on my 10HP bought new in 2005 - never a hint of a problem. Houston this time of year is when the fans come on and stay on. I made a wall bracket that includes an air filter to keep the curious critters out.

Phase Perfect pictures by johnoder - Photobucket

 

[wippin' boy]

last code recorded was a DC buss over voltage.

sounds like locked up tooling
can't blame the utility for that

 

[SND]

In the next 1-2 years I plan on retiring from the airlines and moving up to the farm and building a building there for my toys. Getting 3 Phase that far back is cost prohibitive so no lost capital.

Now I just trying to decide if I should go with a 20 or 30 HP model. I know they can be configured in parallel as my needs grow but just need to decide on the base unit for now then can add another when/if needed.

What sort of incoming power will you have there? a 30hp unit with enough machines hooked to it pretty well maxes out a 200amp(180amp/cont) panel. So plan for at least 400amp/1ph if its a new building, I don't know if they offer more than that for 1ph service.

I know if I had bought the 20hp unit right from the start instead of the 10, I wouldn't have needed to buy the larger one when I got the cnc/compressor.
At the same time I like having 2 units in case one craps out. If I ever need more power I'd get another 20hp and hook it to my 2nd panel.
With that said when I was shopping for a turning center one of them apparently wouldn't sell it or warranty it unless it was on a 30hp PP even if a 20hp would run it with no problems, so that pretty quickly ruled that one out.

 

[Captdave]

I'm not blaming the RPC as I think there is a problem with the machine itself. For example, when running the warm up routine and the spindle has reached 10,000 RPM at the end of the cycle then drops ramps to zero is now when I get the "DC buss over volt" and it faults out. Rest the drive and runs the rest of the day usually with no problems.

I'm not sure if the braking resister is integral to the drive but haven't found anything inside the electrical cabinet that is marked or even looks like a braking resister.

 

[david n]

Never used a PP, but from some local shops, they sound like the way to go.

 

[SND]

I wonder if PP ever did a proper advertising for their units through machinery dealers eh?. Most dealers I've ever talked to had no idea such a thing existed, and if they did its probably cause some other guy like me mentioned it. Can't even think of one machinery dealers who says " no 3phase no problem use this here "...
talk about leaving money on the table.

 

[wippin' boy]

10,000 RPM at the end of the cycle then drops ramps to zero

if it was a mazak i would say get in that drive and widen the accel/decel

not sure what is in a hurco but i would make a couple calls and find out if i was you. (you know, in between chuck changes, set ups and flights around the country side )

 

[scudzuki]

7 years this year on my 10HP bought new in 2005 - never a hint of a problem. Houston this time of year is when the fans come on and stay on. I made a wall bracket that includes an air filter to keep the curious critters out.

Phase Perfect pictures by johnoder - Photobucket

I found an air filter at Home Depot that fits right in the opening in the bottom of the DPC-10.

Once, the unit tripped when I was energizing the servos on my Cinci Arrow 500.

I removed and reapplied input power and all was well.

Other than that it's just been peace of mind knowing I'm feeding the VMC the best power it can get.

Joe

 

[Toolbert]

We've run a 20HP unit for 2 years with no complaints.

I was aware of the noise, it would drive me nuts, like standing with your head inside a TIG HF arc start. For that reason I ordered the weather enclosure, but on seeing how it is still basically open to the air and ours is a super humid environment, I installed it in a closed shed instead of outdoors. Worked out OK.

The one caveat about its 3 phase is you get 240V 3 phase not 208 or 220V. And in the case of our utility, its really 245V not 240. I was warned our Kitamura really wants 200-208V and 245V would fry it and so installed bucking transformers downstream of the PP to drop it to about 225V.

 

[Captdave]

if it was a mazak i would say get in that drive and widen the accel/decel

Beat you to that one Kevin, the Yaskawa manual is great and written in plain english even a simple guy like myself can figure out. Upped all the decel parameters, yes 4 of them a couple of seconds which helped.

Ordered a 20HP yesterday and they expect it to ship on the 23rd.

At the price of these, I wonder how long it will be before the Chinese will be making them?

 

[SND]

At the price of these, I wonder how long it will be before the Chinese will be making them?

It's kinda surprising there isn't at least 1 other maker somewhere on the planet, well none I ever heard of anyway. Though when I peaked inside a bit I thought the cost seemed fairly reasonable when considering all the various components, engineering, enclosure and assembly + profit. Then whatever they have to pay for the UL and all the other listings and liability and such. It's not as bad as $1000 for a 1" boring bar.

 

[Captdave]

The Chinese just print their own UL labels

 

[scudzuki]

We've run a 20HP unit for 2 years with no complaints.

I was aware of the noise, it would drive me nuts, like standing with your head inside a TIG HF arc start. For that reason I ordered the weather enclosure, but on seeing how it is still basically open to the air and ours is a super humid environment, I installed it in a closed shed instead of outdoors. Worked out OK.

The one caveat about its 3 phase is you get 240V 3 phase not 208 or 220V. And in the case of our utility, its really 245V not 240. I was warned our Kitamura really wants 200-208V and 245V would fry it and so installed bucking transformers downstream of the PP to drop it to about 225V.

The oputput voltage is the same as the source.
The US standard is 115V/230V, not 110V/220V.

Any equipment made for the US market should be built to operate 230V nominal, not 220V.

208V, well, that's a whole 'nother thing entirely that requires a transformer (not that 230V is not stepped down at the utility pole but it's certainly the norm vs. 208V).

Joe

 

[sfriedberg]

Yeah, regarding 208V... In the US, 208V is usually wye (Y) 3-phase which includes a neutral. Each phase is 120V relative to the neutral, and 208V relative to the other phases. So there are four current-carrying conductors.

Delta (Δ) 3-phase does not include a separate neutral, and there are only three current-carrying conductors. Each phase is 240V relative to the other phases. (One of the three conductors may be grounded, in addition to safety ground, but that doesn't affect the point I'm making.)

There is another way to get 208V in the US called split-phase delta, but it's less common. Basically, two phases of the delta are treated like 120/240V split single-phase power (common household power), with separate neutral "between" the two phases. The third phase is 208V relative to the neutral, and remains 240V relative to the other two phases.

A PhasePerfect generates delta 3-phase. There is no way to get wye 3-phase from a PP without a delta/wye transformer. However, you can get 208V single-phase from a PP, because the "hot leg" it generates is the third phase of a split-phase delta system. The other two phases and the neutral are identically the input power coming into the PP.

I don't know if PP allows drawing an unbalanced 208V load from just the hot leg, and would call them to ask before doing any such thing Certainly you can't exceed the per-phase current limit, so you won't get anywhere near the full rated HP of the PP unit.

So if you have equipment requiring 3-phase 208V, you need not just a transformer, but a delta/wye transformer in addition to the PP. If you have equipment requiring single-phase 208V, a PP might serve your purpose but check with them first.

And to repeat something scudzuki said, the phase-to-phase output voltage of the PP is the same as the input phase-to-phase voltage, and it's got circuitry inside it to keep the generated hot leg voltage balanced with the input voltages. If your service voltage is high or low, so will be the PP output voltage. Obviously, there is a limited range of input voltages the PP is designed for, so don't go hooking it up to 600V input.

 

[Bruce Griffing]

I agree with the comments above about wye and delta. That said, my Kitamura mill is 208 and is wired for delta. I think many Japanese machines are similar - so there are exceptions. BTW - I run it on a PP.

 

[sfriedberg]

my Kitamura mill is 208 and is wired for delta.

Isn't electricity fun?

Machines wired for delta power can be supplied by either wye or delta of the correct voltage, because equipment wired for delta does not require the additional neutral conductor of wye power.

Machines wired for wye power, however, probably require all four conductors of the wye power unless proven otherwise.