convert 208v/3ph oven to 208 single ph

[theparson]

Looking to buy a triple deck bakery oven. it's 208v/3phase. Anyway to work it on 208 single? Only motor is a 120v fan to circulate air. 3 phase commercial equipment is a lot cheaper than nat gas and doesn't require a hood system.
Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[Zengineer]

Yes. Rotary phase converter (buy or build) for one... check out http://www.americanrotary.com/ for some ideas.

 

[Norcal]

Looking to buy a triple deck bakery oven. it's 208v/3phase. Anyway to work it on 208 single? Only motor is a 120v fan to circulate air. 3 phase commercial equipment is a lot cheaper than nat gas and doesn't require a hood system.
Thanks for any and all advice!

All you have is 120/208V 1Ø? Not 208Y/120V?

 

[mrb]

(i dont know much about rotary converters) how well do they work with resistive loads?

look at the nameplate or manual for the oven, some of them can be reconfigured for single phase operation.

 

[hidollartoys]

We have some electric heating equipment at work that are single and 3 phase capable. The controls utilize a single leg of three phase and the elements are wired phase to phase. In single phase operation the elements are wired in parallel to each other across the hot and neutral. The only issue is they require a larger branch circuit conductor size. Cant recall what wattage they are, seems like 7000 if my memory serves.

It could be possible to rewire the units to operate on single phase but there would be supply conductor size issues based on total wattage of the units. If the units cannot be recongifured as mrb suggests, I would only resort to this as a final solution.

 

[nehog]

You don't need or want a rotary converter for a resistive load, it would simply waste power and money. You *could* rewire it to single phase easily, but the amount of current may be much more than you panel could safely provide.

Likely there is a jumper board inside to reconfigure the unit, that's what I'd look for first. BTW, were are you going to get 208 volt single phase? You can't use 240 volts safely, unless the elements are rated for that voltage, they'll overheat and eventually burn out.