Single Phase 2HP Motor

[naomicornish]

Originally Posted by andrew hawkswell

Naomi - you need to say what rpm you want - 1450 ish or 2900 ish (4 pole or 2 pole motor respectively) - my guess is it will be a 4 pole - I would advise you to get a good brand name second hand British one off e bay rather than a modern one from the far east. The British ones will be well made and stand a bit of abuse. If your lathe doesn't have a clutch you will be stopping, starting and reversing the motor quite frequently which single phase motors are less tolerant of than 3 phase motors, so you need something that will cope with a bit more than steady running.

I agree that I'd rather have something British and robust.... The lathe is a Harrison, and has a clutch.
I'm after 1420rpm(ish) 4 pole.
Brook-Crompton have the 'Capacitor start capacitor run' version No. 2-TDA 90 LT 4-pole, with foot mounting, which would be ideal....... their website typically doesn't list prices, but if the Clarke motor is £132, then we could probably guess the B-C price.

I have checked eBay but nothing on there as yet..... will keep hunting around.... and if anyone has one, then please let me know

[Phil Procter]

Naomi

I have the same lathe and I too needed to fit a single phase motor as it came with a two speed three phase one.
The one I fitted was a good old British 2HP motor as you are asking for, this lasted about 20 years before it gave up the ghost and all I could find at the time was a 1.5HP replacement. This was never really up to the job and would stall if the lathe was very cold.

I recently needed to turn a 12" cast iron flywheel for my model mill engine, the lathe was really too fast for this so I decided to fit a 2HP three phase motor and run it from an inverter.
This is the best decision I ever made, it runs much smoother with hardly any vibration at all, and I can go down to about 10 RPM spindle speed with it.

The brand new motor was then only £76 on ebay, and I already had the inverter, but these can be bought relatively cheaply for a similar price to the motor these days.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172195074657

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2HP-1-5KW-...cAAOSwYmZXJGmR

Would I ever consider a single phase again ?...........No Chance
Phil

[SimonT]

I'd be cautious of the specific inverter in that link. The fleabay location is given as 'Portsmouth' but the seller has an address in China. The description is in broken English which suggests the location is incorrect, possibly just put there to make sure it pops up even if the 'UK only' option is selected.
If the details aren't 100% then the product is always in some doubt, for me. I'd much prefer to buy something from a British company (manufacturer or importer) to be confident of meeting most UK standards and have some sort of come back if needed.

Simon.