New (old) widebelt

[Carl Beckett]

Have been chasing a widebelt sander that was listed on my local craigslist. Its an AEM 25" 15hp three phase. I dont have three phase, but for $1000 I was inclined to figure something out.

Then in another town I find a phase-a-matic static converter (12-18hp).

So last weekend I picked them both up. Too busy to do anything more than getting it home and unloaded (managed to get it unloaded by myself without getting killed - another bonus)

This evening I wire up the converter to my single phase 220, and punch the button and viola! A working widebelt. :)

Will have to wait to the weekend to mess with understanding the pneumatic tracking, and put on a new belt (the one that was on it was no good), and give it a real test drive. But its nice to hear it run (given I bought it without being able to turn it on). So far so good.

$1000 for the sander and $150 for the converter.

My hope is that I can swap this out for my dual drum grizzly, and only have a nominal investment. The footprint is about the same, but the widebelt seems like a much more substantial machine.

Obligatory pics - will post something better once I have a chance to spend some time setting it up.

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[Paul Sikorski]

Wow thats a sick deal. I cant wait to hear about the results after you run some wood through it. Well done!!

[Damon Stathatos]

Congrats on the new wide belt. I'll offer up some advice. Make sure your dust collection is hooked up and working good. If it relies on a photoelectric eye, excess dust can throw your tracking off (defeat it). Also, you may want to initially use (while testing) the old belt, I've torn up more than a few and it's an expensive bummer to blow a new belt. If I were you, I'd do some cleaning on your feed belt/bed. It's hard to see from your picture but if it's a belt that has hard rubber 'nibs,' those things get slick after a while and need to be roughened up periodically. I lightly run my ROS uniformly over the whole belt with a heavy grit, 60 or 80, to re-rough up the nibs on occasion. Lastly, once you get it up and running good, don't get too aggressive with your passes. Keep your eye on the motor meter and keep it below (60-80%) the red line. If you try to 'hog' off too much on a pass you can really stress the motor, possibly burn your wood, and stress other stuff like sanding belts, belt rollers, etc.

Congrats again, once you've gone 'wide belt,' you never go back.

[Stephen Cherry]

If you want to run other three phase machines, one way to consider doing it is to use the motor from the sander as an idler of a rotary phase converter. You could remove the sanding belt, or maybe a drive belt, start the sander with the static phase converter, and while it's running, it will produce three phase electric on it's terminals. Good for up to about 7.5 hp.

[Bruce Page]

Sweet deal! There’s a guy selling a 20hp 37” “Refurbished - Excellent Condition” AEM on our CL for 4K. 20hp is about 15hp more than my shop can handle.

[Carl Beckett]

Thank you Damon and Stephen, very valuable information!

[Erik Loza]

What a great find and yes, you WILL want as much dust collection as possible on that guy. I've never personally worked with an AEM but if it's anything like ours, there should be a large plenum-type manifold on the top. It will be a big flange, wherever it's located. To echo Damon's comment on the belts, I have had customers tell me about quirky issues with belts of a light color, where the infrared eye has trouble reading it. If you are shopping for belts, maybe confirm with your vendor that whatever you're getting has a good track record. I don't know that one brand is necessarily better than the next (many of my guys use 3M but there are probably plenty of others that are fine...) but just wanted to mention this in the event you just planned to purchase belts online or whatever.

Best of luck with it.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Carl Beckett]

Thanks Eric,

Im hoping I wont need belts in the near future - I did get a box of belts with it. Maybe a dozen of different grits?

It does have a plenum around the sanding drum for dust collection. We will see how it compares to the dual drum... my current system does ok with that, but machine design does impact dust collection and on older equipment in general I dont think it was emphasized as much in the design. So we will see.

Still some learning to do on the tracking mechanism, and tensioning, etc - so all of these comments are valuable. I do have one of the hold down rollers that has some chunks out of the rubber... given there are 4 of these Im going to get it useful first and then attack any maintenance needed. Also, the drive drum itself has some wear right at the edge where the belt runs. Im guessing this isnt all that uncommon, and will be paying attention to how much this impacts uniformity of cut.

And the indicator lights (the 'run' lights) are missing. Its pretty obvious when its running so Im not sure what function they serve... but just the little things to put back to getting it in top shape.

And Im going to mount a digital readout on it for depth.

[Damon Stathatos]

...Still some learning to do on the tracking mechanism, and tensioning, etc - so all of these comments are valuable. ....

I forgot to mention it is essential that your air compressor is able to supply the minimum psi continuously. I'm not sure if all machines are equal but mine requires a minimum of 90 psi (again, continuously). I have two compressors running on a daisy-chain set up, an 80 gal 5hp and a 120 gal 7hp, and they're running just under a maximum where they should run (a bit less than 50% of the time). My WBS has three heads and is not as efficient (air leak-wise) as I'd like it to be but it's not gushing air either. I'd take a good guess that a single head requires less cfm's so you should be ok with less compressor capacity, but I just don't know what the minimum capacity would be.

The tensioning should be taken up when you turn the air on, with the top head raising and tensioning the belt. If that's not happening or you are losing tensioning over time, you may not be supplying the minimum psi needed. This is just my 'stab' at a long distance guess.

Like you, I got my machine and didn't have much of a clue as to how to keep everything going. It took me months to get it tracking and running somewhat reliably. Once you learn the guts of the thing, it starts to become second nature and if something begins to happen, since you've 'been there done that' before, you begin to know where to troubleshoot. One thing I'd caution though is to never lose respect for this machine. I run a lot of big machines that spin blades and heads faster than I'd want any body part to interact with, but my WBS is the one machine that still keeps me breathing a bit harder whenever I'm reaching my limbs in and around, regardless that it's off. If you ever 'lose' a belt, the time between it getting torn up inside your machine and the machine shutting down (hopefully shutting down) sometimes seems like an eternity as it can be a violent event. Those belts don't just rip apart like tissue paper, although you'll wish they did as they're thrashing around while the machine's throwing on it's STOP NOW protocol. I once had one of my ON switches fuse itself together so the head wouldn't stop, even though the brakes were fully engaged (break disc glowing red hot) and again, seemed like an eternity until I could get to the breaker to completely cut power to the machine. Don't get the wrong idea...not trying to scare you here...just offering up the advice to never lose respect with this machine.

[Keith Weber]

Hey Carl,

Just out of curiosity, how many amps is the breaker on the circuit on which you run that sander? I've got a auction-bought SafetySpeedCut 37" that also has a 15hp motor. I haven't run it yet (mainly because I just haven't gotten around to getting it wired and supplied with compressed air.) I'm hoping that I can get away with an 80A breaker to run the phase converter and widebelt. It's all I can really squeeze out of the 100A sub panel in my shop.

Keith

[Carl Beckett]

Hi Keith,

This is a great question! I'm currently doing the wiring so its not setup yet. Since the phase inverter has capacitors I was wondering if that wont reduce the inrush current at startup. So I was going to try and get away with as small a breaker as possible ( thinking I want the lowest breaker setting that still allows it to run ).

Right this very moment, it's on a 20a breaker and turns on and runs, but I haven't loaded it. Was going to start with a 40a and see ...... ( 15hp running at 2/3 power due to phase inverter means only a 10hp. My 5hp machines have been running on 20a breakers so maybe 40 will do? )

Ideally I would like to get an ammeter wired into the panel.

[Brian Ross]

I have a 37 in SCM widebelt in my shop. It has an 18 hp main motor and a 1 hp feed motor. Prior to getting the used widebelt I was running a 20 HP Rotary phase converter for my slider 9 hp and a 5 hp DC. It ran them flawlessly for 4 years prior to getting the widebelt. The RPC was fed by a 60 amp breaker in my single phase 100 amp panel. Widebelts have a heavy current draw on start up so I decided to contact American Rotary from whom I had purchased my RPC. They were unsure if the unit I had would start my widebelt due to the heavy current draw. They also informed me that shoud I want to add another RPC it would have to be the same size as the one I already had. I purchased another 20 HP RPC and have it hooked up in parallel with a switch that allows me to run one at a time if not using the wide belt. It also is fed from the same panel with a 60 amp breaker. I should note that I have started the widebelt with only one of the RPC's running and it did start fine. I have also tripped the breaker starting it on one RPC. A mistake on my part both times. I would suspect that a 80 amp breaker and 20 hp RPC would start you widebelt no problem. Anything I have read is that static phase converters are not that great for machines that have a heavy current draw.You will appreciate having a widebelt

[Carl Beckett]

Thanks Brian.

It starts without problem on a 20A breaker.

[Rick Fisher]

Hey Carl ..

Nice to hear you got it running ..
I have the 25" SCM Win, which I assume is about the same size . . I run the Pneumatics off a Makita MAC 2400 compressor ..

The compressor runs about 50% of the time while the wide belt is running but its been a few years, and a few oil changes, and all is fine so far..

I have a shop compressor but found it too loud ..

[Keith Weber]

And here I was worried about the eventual first start-up of my wide belt on an 80A breaker, and Carl is getting his to run on 20A. I was more worried about popping the breaker on start-up. Running it wasn't so much of a concern. I also have been running an American Rotary 20hp, but go figure....two days after I bought it, I came across a local auction that had a couple of never used Phasemasters that I got for absolute steal. They're big at 15 and 20hp (equivalent to 45hp and 60hp using the American Rotary designating method). I figured that when I got a wide belt, I could use one of them for it, sell the other and keep the American Rotary for all my other tools. Too many projects... too little time!

Keith

[Jim Andrew]

You did get a book with the sander? So you know what psi to run, and should also give some direction about circuit breaker? And directions to set up your oscillation? Congrats on the great buy!

[Jeff Duncan]

I'm surprised a 15 hp motor started on a 20 amp breaker? I use 30 amp fuses for my 7-1/2 and 9 hp motors, I've cheated with 20 amp fuses in the past, but they usually won't last long! My 25 HP sander runs on a 60 amp fuse though I feel it's borderline and should probably be an 80 amp if I could fit one. For 15 hp you may be OK with the 40 amp....though I have no idea how the convertors affect things?

good luck,
JeffD

[Carl Beckett]

No book or manual. Would love one,if someone has an idea of how to find it.

The pressure was set at 40psi when I unlaoded it. I didn't change this, the compressor keeps up fine.

The static phase converter is basically a capacitor bank to let the motor start and then a relay cuts off the third leg. SO you are running on two legs, and derated power ( if I understand any of it correctly)

My guess is that this capacitor bank helps lower required start current

Also note that I havent put a large load on it with the 20a breaker.... So it is yet untested as to how adequate it will be in operation

Would still like to add an ammeter if someone knows a good recommendation for how. And would like to replace the push button switches ( which are just spring loaded knobs that manually press the relay when pushed on)

[Jeff Duncan]

I have no idea how similar or different wide belts are in terms of air pressure....but FWIW on my machine I run paper belts at 40 psi and cloth at 60 psi per PO recommendation.

good luck,
jeffD