Baldor grinders - what the hell am I looking at?

Southern · Apr 22, 2013

Alright, back again to bug you guys about grinder questions because I'm painfully ignorant about the ins and outs of this type of tool.

Some of you may remember a while back my 1/2hp resto I did. If not, here's the outcome:

So now I'ma do it again. I picked up a couple of grinders at an auction. One for a song, and one for about what it's worth. Here they are.

One's a 1/3 on a 1 3/4'' plate stand that weighs 470 lbs and I hate it.

The other is a really cool 1/2 on a taller but lighter 390lb stand.

This one isn't missing the wheelguard, I took it off to test it out in my new sandblaster which works like a dream.

As you can see, they're both wired up with foot switches:

Anyway here's where the questions come in. I wanted to take these things off the stands, which I'm going to have to do to pull them apart and restore them (doing new capacitors, new bearings, cleaning wirings, resurfacing armatures, the whole 9), but I don't even know how the hell to make sense out of all of this:

Can I trouble one or some of you fine men to explain to me, like I am 5, what the hell I am looking at, how it works, and anything I need to be acutely aware of before/while I tear these things down and attempt to put them back together again?

Thanx!

Mohawk Dave · Apr 22, 2013

no help to your question, but just curious...how the hell did you load them and unload them. I presume a forklift at the auction??? And what about when you got home?

Awesome buys, btw :beer:

Southern · Apr 22, 2013

Mohawk Dave said:
no help to your question,

Just kidding. Thanks for the props. They forklifted them onto my truck at the auction. I have a sloped driveway that winds up about 3'' under the end of my tailgate when I back up just right, so unloading heavy **** it usually a matter of getting a dolly under it and lowering the wheels over the edge of the tailgate onto the driveway using a ratchet strap or a comealong as a resistance pulley.

The heavier grinder actually slipped off the dolly because the wheels rolled over the edge a little cockeyed and the dolly got squirrely. One bigass kink in the center of my gate later the grinder managed to land upright in the driveway where I dragged it up into the garage cursing at it.

The sandblaster weighs close to half a ton and I unloaded it the same way, by myself, without incident.

Mohawk Dave · Apr 22, 2013

well hot damn. Right on and lookin forward to the finished product!

nine4gmc · Apr 22, 2013

I don't know what you are looking at on the inside either but if you take apart as few pieces as necessary, you can label the wires a,b,c,d etc and just make your own legend to hook them back up.

:lol:

at the heavy *** stands, no problem with them walking off though

WWIIjeep · Apr 22, 2013

Those are magnetic motor starters. Required by OSHA for machines used in industry. The line power goes into the top of the contactor (the black thing in the box) and the motor power comes out of the bottom of the contactor. Three wires go to the on-off push-buttons to control the contactor.

The foot switches are probably connected to the motor leads at the bottom of the contactor. They may be connected through the push-buttons instead, but I doubt it.

zkling · Apr 22, 2013

As WWIIJeep said, those are magnetic motor starters. Look on the inside of the box cover and see if they provide a wiring diagram.

If you could add a better picture of the wiring I could drawer out a diagram for you. The foot control was probably used as a shutoff only as if both hands were busy grinding and you needed to shut if off quick. It is probably paralled with the stop button the switch box. That way you could only turn it on at the machine but could kill it with your foot or at the machine.

A better picture would help thou.

P.S. you ****!!! I would like to find a cheap baldor on a base like yours, but so far not much luck.

uniballer · Apr 22, 2013

Lots of pictures and wire labels with numbers!

Southern · Apr 22, 2013

Goddamn fellas, good looking out. Thanks for the detailed info Zkling and Jeep.

Both of the contactor covers have wiring diagrams inside of them. I think unhooking them and hooking them back up wouldn't be too much of an issue with enough pictures and the diagrams. Here's a few quastions I'm wondering:

1) Is it better/smarter/possible to just undo the whole system and wire the grinders back to regular old switch operated 110?
2) Once restored, is there more of a market for a grinder with these fancy safety systems on them or not? I imagine commercial shops that require this stuff are probably just buying new equipment from a dealer, and the home machinist I would probably sell these to wouldn't find a benefit in this stuff, right?
3) If I took the magnetic motor systems off of both grinders, is there a market for these systems sold separately?

I'll actually plug them in an attempt to work them. That way I'll be able to tell you what the deadman switches to exactly. Since they pedals have the heavy duty switch cover over the top of them, I'm leaning to thinking these are motor starts instead of motor kills, but we'll find out shortly.

Thanx!

2oolhound · Apr 22, 2013

The base plate where the grinder sits should be the same size as the grinder base so it doesn't get in the way of odd shaped work.

nine4gmc · Apr 22, 2013

I would personally put those foot switches back on there if I were keeping the grinders but if you feel inclined to remove them, consider selling/trading me one please.

Mohawk Dave · Apr 22, 2013

nine4gmc said:
I would personally put those foot switches back on there if I were keeping the grinders but if you feel inclined to remove them, consider selling/trading me one please.

I second this...I would like to have one as well. :beer:

pcmeiners · Apr 22, 2013

Safety switch? Baldors do not like to stop without an electronic brake. Probably the switch is to tap the Baldor on to control rpm. If it is for safety, then it is on par with the cross walk buttons in NYC ( as they do not work), maybe an OSHA/Insurance company idiot recommended it. I would keep it for speed control.

theknurl · Apr 22, 2013

Southern;
they are Baldors.....

remove all the OSHA **** and sell it

wire them like your old one :thumbup:

plug them in, turn them on, 99.9% chance they'll still be running when you are pushing daises

true the wheels, they won't need bearings or anything else, so don't take them apart......leave sleeping dogs lie

OK, a new cord

Southern · Apr 23, 2013

Alright, new question.

I set about taking these little devils apart and getting them off the stands. I've decided to sell the magnetic starts separately after restoring them, too (heads up Nine and Mohawk). Anyway, the smaller grinder was pretty straight forward, a power line running into the control box with a black, a white and a ground wire.

The larger grinder, however, has a pretty large piece of liquid tight conduit coming from a Jbox installed on the back of the actual grinder, holding several more wires than a normal 3: A yellow, orange, blue, red, and white and a ground.

Strangely enough, there's no Black, and it's wired differently than the other one. Why's this one have so damn many more wires?

WWIIjeep · Apr 23, 2013

Southern said:
Why's this one have so damn many more wires?

Comparing the photo you just posted with your first photo on the left, I'd say it's probably because that conduit has the load wires for the motor and the wires for the push-button station.

Southern · Apr 23, 2013

Oh...duh. You're right.

I miss the simplest things sometimes :doh:

Thanks, jeep!

richfab619 · Nov 23, 2013

Great job on the restore.bought one today for 40 and it runs baldor 8200.i want to the same paint scheme but with red .did you use regular automoive paint ?

torqueman2002 · Nov 23, 2013

Baldor grinders - what the hell am I looking at?

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