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VFD by Hitachi courtesy of Drives Warehouse For my UK friends: UK VFD's Motor by Leeson Sundries by MSC, a great company! Contactors and assorted power-handling goodies by eBay |
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VFD by Hitachi courtesy of Drives Warehouse For my UK friends: UK VFD's Motor by Leeson Sundries by MSC, a great company! Contactors and assorted power-handling goodies by eBay |
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 The prime mover and motor-vator, a Hitachi L100 VFD. Compact, intelligent, and packed with features that are a lot of fun to program and generally mess with. Cost, as of 2004, U.S. $300 at Drives Warehouse. |
VFD Conversion! I'd venture that roughly 1/2 of the visitors to this page are wondering "O.K. Neat. Now, what's a VFD?" A Variable Frequency Drive is used to control the speed of a 3-phase induction motor. It is FAR more than a fancy rheostat... controlling the speed of a 3-phase motor requires one to control the frequency of the voltage delivered to the motor, and this is not a trivial feat. Goals: Initially, I was going to rather quickly slap this device onto an aluminum bracket and use it to feed the 1.5HP motor which powers my vertical mill. As I researched the technology, I realized that to do this correctly would require a bit more effort. On this web site, I was not going to do more than mention it in passing, perhaps post a picture or two, but I realized that it could become a "mini-project" in its own right, as there is quite a bit of interesting theory involved, as well as some mechanical and electrical work which might help others interested in such a conversion for their own machine. Here then, are the goals at the outset:
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