Off Grid 3 phase

Circle back on this link for moment Mike.
Heā€™s the guy that wound the toroidal transformer on an old AC motor cor from the video I posted ( that does not work unless you open in a new window ).
Made that odd static converter that I think is based on the ideas in the IEEE paper.

Iā€™d like to dissect that thing and play with myself to see what he has there, but Iā€™m not that interested in to buy his 29 dollar book on Amazon

I need to fix something up for some folks.
Iā€™m leaning hard into a small frame 2 pole motor and rewinding it myself to at 10% more turns one phase and some balance caps ( also starting cap ).
But I have seen a Scott T connection in a winding before.
It would not be hard at all to put some offset into the winding in the form of some taps I could play with so I can tinker with the inductance as well as adding external capsā€¦

This is a serious thing however.
The application ( sit down for this ) is a small artisan bakery

I looked at the prints for some of the equipment she acquired as the business has grown,
European 220 three phase stuff.
I rather not rewire this stuff to run single phase.
a large converter will draw a lot of power and I have restrictions in her place of business.

Done correctly and running not so much equipment at once will be the rule of the day until she moves ( if she moves ) to a larger place with proper 3 phase power.

These problems however are not unique to just her a lot of people find they have no cost effective means to run things like this.

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I think what he is doing is lagging the circuit of one of the legs 30 degrees. Instead of 2 wires offset by 90, if you lag one, by 30, it is 120 degree offset which ends up to be a multiple of the 60 degree offset used for 3-phase.(instead of the first and second offset by 60, and the second and third offset by 60, it is leg 1 and 3 which are offset by 120.) Essentially he now has 2 legs of 3 phase which of course uses 2/3 the amps. :stuck_out_tongue:

Alternatively, a transformer, could be used you energize the secondary and get the 3 phase out the primary.

But for your application, I would look at a solid state. a 1hp 3-phase box is 100 bucks, and you might be able to find them for less. The 10Kw fronius solar inverter is $2500.

The price has dropped over the last several years. The last time I looked prices were all over the place in a large part due to legacy prices for components.

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The box has start and run capacitors he says.
So if one leg is lagging because of added inductance like you say, one leg is leading because of the the start and run caps it might make sense.

Thats a really crude transformer.
I wonder if its also limiting inrush currentā€¦
Sort of inductive reduced voltage starter?
I have never seen that done in the real world but its not unreasonable to think it would not work.

That ā€œroot of 3 thingā€ comes into play here with only two operational legs but instead of 2/3 like you said I think its more like .58.
Thats a big reduction in starting amps and torque.
Probably good for a high inertia load like a blower.

Iā€™m pretty stubborn in not wanting to use electronics to solve this if I can, its pretty easy to get a 208 motor, and I can wind a whole lot nicer looking transformer and re stack something if needed or rewind a motor if needed.

Your thoughts are appreciated

That is more what Iā€™m thinking.

You are probably best to get that 5ton elevator ac to DC thing that you said you always wanted. I am not sure running transformer backwards works with all the phases now that I think about itā€¦

Which leaves a rotary phase converter

Unless you run a dc motor with a wheel that rotates at 60hz, have a wheel or lobe (like a camshaft) that flips a mercury switch. A series of 3 would give you three phases of pulsed dc which you can obviously run a squirrel cage with because that is literally a VFD.

That wasnā€™t meā€¦
But now that you mention it, I think I want one of those too, and a wind mill, and an overshot water wheel, and a servant named Friday to cut palm trees and build stuff from it and cook my mealā€¦

Maybe I just stick with an elevator or stare lift for now because my knees do make the steps kind of hard now lol

The stairwell can probably fit an overshot water wheel, and put a hot tub at the bottom of the stairs. :slight_smile:

You would have better luck building a robot named Friday.

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I built a rotary 3-phase converter for a large lathe. I used capacitors to adjust the phase angles and start capacitors to get it spinning. No details (Itā€™s been a few years ago) but it worked a treat and was a very fun project.

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I like the way you think.

That amplidyen and MG set were sent to the scrap yard sadly

Oh man! I thought I had the perfect excuse for you to acquire those. :frowning:

Anyway. here is some old skool tech since for your SHTF scenario.

The only OTHER diode I found was a wet cell type, but those donā€™t work as well and have issues. Althought I did stumble on to how to make a mosfet at home, but that was several steps and some serious chemicals.

Itā€™s really shocking the speed of change

I still encounter selenium rectifiers and so many things that have technically gone obsolete

But they struggle on un noticed until a component failure reminds you they are there

Generations Of technologies can be compressed into an old plant

End of the shift I will try and get some pics of what I mean

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Iā€™m actually not surprised. ā€œIf it ainā€™t broke, donā€™t fix itā€. that goes hand in hand with another old addage of ā€˜it is cheaper to waste energy, then to conserve itā€™. Some of the old technology actually works better in very specific use cases. I donā€™t think that is the case for rectifiers, but you have to account for the rest of the circuit as well, and in some cases if you change the design, it falls out of code so you have to fix a lot more then you intended to fix.

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Not so long ago I could disconnect and remove heating elements in a forced air air electric furnace
Now they donā€™t want you to do that, and if you do you need a field inspection

What counts as built or bought gets gray and the clouds get very dark if you modify things like you say.

I think itā€™s itā€™s over reach on the side of inspectors and csa
Technically Iā€™m not sure how much is allowed
Is a rewind allowed if you add modern insulation and then take advantage of this by making a motor stronger?

I donā€™t know
Better to just keep my head down and not get caught saying I fixed that but altered it with a new part

I guess I picked up some attitude from my boss back in the day when I worked in the motor repair shop
I learned a hydro inspection doesnā€™t know much except the code and when you corner him with math and physics he gets very nervous if he thinks heā€™s going to lose face and seen as not know electricity as well as he knows codes

BaAck in the days before me when we switched from 25 to 60 cycle lots of washing machine motors had to be replaced.
But really they did not
You just had to split the winding and reconnect it it.
You turned a 1450 rpm 1/4 hp motor into a 3500 rpm motor that was now close to 1/2 hp
Do a pulley change and maybe he house wife was happy for less money than a new motor

I donā€™t t think you could do that with today without somebody telling you itā€™s a code violation or something

By 1990 I was rewinding the last of the industrial motors for 60 hz ( going add to this at a later date maybe 95 we stopped generating our own a few years after hydro stopped days are hard to remember )
I donā€™t know if they would let me just restrike a new data plate and send that stuff back out like the old days

And of an inspector called me out on it but just might want to tell him to get stuffed
Iā€™m not sure how I feel about effectively seeing much higher levels of enforcement.

On the one hand itā€™s probably made electricity in Ontario safer
On the other it means Iā€™m not special and I should follow them too

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This is a common problem. People enforcing the codes arenā€™t experts. Neither are most people that make changes. You can convert the washer, and it might spin fine, but is it designed to handle the extra heat? and the rest of the components the extra torque? I am guessing in some cases yes, but I am also guessing in some cases no and the extra heat could cause a fire or stuff will break, and then people get mad and sue. In a number of cases rules are set, not because you canā€™t make it work, but so things arenā€™t crazy that you need an engineering degree figure out what was done when someone else comes back in 30 years.

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Hereā€™s some stuff

80 years ago a guy would have stood here and pull three levers

Now itā€™s down to two joystick and itā€™s automated
But the clutch handle is still original

Modular starter?
Nope antique from the 40

U frame motors lol

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Summary

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what is the paygrade for the guy who is supposed to pull the lever? :slight_smile: I would apply for the nightshift but that isnā€™t a recliner chair in the picture. I would need accommodations. :rofl:

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Good question
Probably around 40 plus incentive 10 percent

Nights are the worst you have to sit there and watch two of those things
When something goes wrong you have to take over


Mechanical contrivance to stop the machinery in a fault condition and a paper recorder


The safety computer from the 00 that replaced it


Main pic from the 90s itself an upgrade from one from the 80s


Motor from the 40s


Drive from the 80s

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It is all good. i would be out of a job in 12 months anyway. I would literally program my way out of that one in 6 months, and they would catch me sleeping in 6 months, and then would be out of a jobā€¦ :slight_smile:

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Not a chance.
The ABB guys have the safety controller all locked up.
But you can access the Modicon.
Its all write protected though you cant do anything to it.

I knew the designer ( not well but I learned a lot from him )

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Oh! that might take a bit longer. Challenge accepted! Where do I sign up? :rofl:
I wonder how long it will take to reverse engineer the modicon. Then I can start with the abb stuff, and open source it all, and then get fired because of all the mt dew bottles stacked up that I didnā€™t have time to take to recycling.

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