Recent content by jw_

not a rental. thanks for the insight.

what is the best approach to getting insurance on a garage that's not on the same property as my home? i want to insure the building/liability/contents. i'm not doing business with the public, just working on my own stuff. any insurance experts here?

BANG! I had checked the voltage wiring on the lathe motor, but ASSumed that since the idler motor was running on 240 ok that it was hooked up correctly... wrong. there was a jumper block that you reverse for low/high and i'll be damned if it wasn't set to hi! fixed that and she hopped right up...

i just tried switching the 3 leads going into the lathe 2 at a time. switched 1,2, no change, switched 1/3, no change... interesting thing when i switched 2/3 it caused the contactor to arc and jump. voltages are like 249/208/212 is that bad enough to keep the motor from starting? really...

it's starting to sound like there is a problem with the lathe motor, no? it's definitely not picking up speed like it should. i'm measuring 1.2-1.3 across each of the windings on a 200 ohm scale. i don't know what i should be getting, but the fact that they all look about the same makes me...

i'm using 12ga wire to the RPC, and the existing cables that were on the lathe when i bought it, which also appear to be 12ga.

no, i can run the rpc all day no problem. the lathe starts and runs but soon trips the breaker. also i can't tell if it's getting up to full speed or not.. kinda seems slow to me. it is a squirrel cage induction motor. it can be started in either direction by a set of triple-pole air break...

no start capacitors... i'm starting the idler motor with a rope.

i have it connected to a 240V 30A circuit and it will now start and run in both directions, but the breaker is tripping after about 10 seconds. how do i calculate what size breaker i need?

ok, so if the rated amperage at 240v 3ph is 18, what size breaker do i need to power it from a single phase source through an idler motor.... approximately?

thanks.

ok, another stupid question... how does a double pole breaker differ from a pair of single pole breakers? i get that both legs break on overload, but other than that it would be essentially the same as a pair of adjacent single breakers in the panel, right?

so i want to hook up a really simple rotary phase converter using a 5hp idler motor to generate 3ph power for a big lathe (also 5hp) some questions: does it matter which wire from the 3 phase motor goes where? in my feeble understanding it wouldn't, except that the motor might run backwards in...