VFD Drive

[Barry Versteegh]

Has anyone used the the small VFD no name drives on ebay from China? The price is very low compared to name brand drives. I need drive for 3/4 hp motor on oliver lathe that will not have very heavy use. Was just wondering if anyone has been there and done that to see if the low ball drive is worth the gamble.

[David Buchhauser]

Hi Barry,
I purchased a larger version of this VFD (see photos) several years ago on Ebay. I installed it onto a 4 HP 3 phase belt sander to allow variable speed with 240V single phase operation. It works great and I have had no problems with it. I have customers who have used the smaller versions of this same unit on their P-Max reciprocating power hammers with great success. These are typically around 1-2 HP 3 phase motors. I think I paid around $119 on Ebay for the one I bought. It looks like the prices for the smaller versions are quite reasonable. You may need to become a contributor to see the photos.
David
eBay #291671774972



410379 410380 410381 410382 410383

[Chris Hachet]

Has anyone used the the small VFD no name drives on ebay from China? The price is very low compared to name brand drives. I need drive for 3/4 hp motor on oliver lathe that will not have very heavy use. Was just wondering if anyone has been there and done that to see if the low ball drive is worth the gamble.

I have an Oliver lathe and a TECO FM 50 for it was just over a hundred bucks, still cheap. for me it is well worth the few extra bucks for good technical support from someone like Factorymation.

[Bill Dufour]

I have three cheap Hung Yang knockoff VFD's. One was no good out of the box. it indicated output on the screen but no voltage at the output terminals. No other problems but I paid extra for one with braking resister terminals which it does have. Problem is the terminals are not connected internally which is a common fraud with these cheap units.
Bill D.

[Curt Harms]

I have an Oliver lathe and a TECO FM 50 for it was just over a hundred bucks, still cheap. for me it is well worth the few extra bucks for good technical support from someone like Factorymation.

That was me too. I bought one from Dealer's Electric. It was more $ but this was my first experience with VFDs and I was concerned about the (lack of) documentation on the bargain Ebay units. Someone with VFD experience might get along fine with the Ebay units.

[Bill Dufour]

You will want to mount a remote variable speed control so it may be worth it to get one with support and instructions. For simple on/off instructions not really needed.
Bil lD

[Matt Day]

I have an Oliver lathe and a TECO FM 50 for it was just over a hundred bucks, still cheap. for me it is well worth the few extra bucks for good technical support from someone like Factorymation.

+1


The well like Huanyang VFD’s that we’re sold on eBay aren’t there anymore I don’t think. They look the same but I think the internals are questionable. At least that was I recall from PracticalMachinist last week before I ordered up my usual Teco FM50-203-C for my 3hp bandsaw.

[Tom Trees]

I have the Huanyang and the Isacon/askpower drives on my bandsaw and tablesaw.
I cooked my previous Huanyang whilst bogging the bandsaw down using a damaged blade, my motor didn't smell too nice afterwards,
but still works great thankfully.
These things don't like being stalled !!!!!
I had a pot on the previous Huanyang and it kept tripping the VFD, if you keep doing this you have to "master reset" the VFD, which means
plugging out the VFD, waiting for the power to discharge,
taking the panels off and plugging out the ribbon cable, (I cant remember which one of the pair needs disconnecting)
Reassemble, parameter reset and it works away again.
I will mention what must have been the built in relay failed, after swapping out my Huanyang from the bandsaw to the tablesaw.
I had the old cooked Huanyang and swapped the front panel quick and I have three wire control again.

Three wire control means having a start and a seperate stop switch, which are in a separate location from the high voltage input 240v and motor terminals.
so the (start) terminal wire comes from "FOR" , into the "RST" terminal (relay), with another wire coming from the relay to the stop "DCM" terminal.

The Isacon/askpower drive does not have the relay function, (or maybe mine has just never worked?)
This is a sub 5 quid component I am told.
So instead of using "push buttons" I used a simple toggle switch instead.

The reason I put the Isacon/askpower on the bandsaw is because it has a auto shutoff cooling fan feature
so the fan only activates when the motor is running.
I use the bandsaw more frequently throughout the day for small jobs, rather than the tablesaw for decent periods of time.

It was confusing when I first was trying to figure the parameters for my Huanyang, as there were various "Chinglish" manuals coming out,
there is documentation on these now though from the west so that's not an issue anymore.
There's youtube video's on the subject, my parameter values on both drives are probably here if you were to check, should you choose either brand mentioned.
If you go for an even cheaper VFD/inverter than these cheapies, you might want to see if you can get any info on the parameters firstly.
This might be a headache for the un-inducted

If you know nothing about these VFD's beware of the following...

Wait till the power drains from the large bank of capacitors before touching the motor or input terminals.

Make sure you do a parameter reset before entering parameter values, my Huanyang had a default hertz setting of 400hz!!!! which would cook your motor in a second, running it at eight times the speed than normal.
It would be all too easy to hit start by accident on these things.

Make sure there is no way of the motor getting disconnected form the VFD as this would cook it, these are always hard wired and not used with a plug between them.

And just to make sure you remember, these things don't like getting stalled!

Good luck, with your lathe

Tom

[Larry Edgerton]

I have an Oliver lathe and a TECO FM 50 for it was just over a hundred bucks, still cheap. for me it is well worth the few extra bucks for good technical support from someone like Factorymation.

Ditto. I looked at the cheap ones, then I looked at the proprietary motor on the Clausing DP I was going to put it on and decided I did not want to take a chance for $50, bought a Teco. I also bought from Factorymation for the same reason.