Thanks for the pics and suggestions guys!
Made some headway today, the 20a 240v outlet is wired up and ready to go, I mounted it in a 2-gang box with a double-pole switch so I can easily kill input power to the VFD if needed.
Next on the list was stripping off the original drum switch & old wiring. The drum switch is a nice old piece of gear (and will go "into stock") but the wiring had deteriorated to the point where the insulation was cracking off, pretty scary to think it was in use like that...
My plan is to make a "control panel" in a 5x3x2" aluminum enclosure, with an emergency stop mushroom switch, a 10k pot for speed control and a 3-position rotary fwd/off/rev switch. I have the box and the pot, just waiting on the other 2 switches to arrive.
On the FM50 the e-stop is done by closing a circuit, which is a little odd. The stop switch I ordered has both NO and NC contacts, so I was thinking I'd wire the NO contacts to the e-stop terminal and the NC contacts in series with the fwd/off/rev switch, that way pushing the stop button will break the regular fwd/rev circuit at the same time as closing the e-stop circuit.
Falcon67, neat solution to the problem of needing somewhere to terminate the flex cabling to from the VFD to the control box and motor. I'm planning to use 18/8 security wire for the control panel, so that will really just need strain relief since I wasn't planning on putting it in a sheath.
For the motor wiring I have 4 12ga thhn wires and was going to run them in metallic liquidtight flex conduit to shield against interference but obviously that will require somewhere to terminate the flex.
