Why are we not seeing more VFD variable speed machines?

[Greg Quenneville]

Yes, in most cases. I bought my first ebay servo + drive for my metal lathe. My lathe originally had a 1960’s electronic drive with a speed range of 40-4000 rpm. The drive was burnt out, and the motor was a 200 lb behemoth. The servo also has the indexing feature which is useful on such machines.

Monarch 10EE lathes are similar, and owners wishing a VFD solution to the noisey motor-generator drives have to use a 10hp motor to have any useful low rpm torque.

More to the forum at hand, for woodworking I would find a VFD useful on any of my tools since, except for the shaper and drill press, all work in a fairly narrow range of speeds. My shapers get the belts changed with tooling changes, but most of my cutters require the same rpm anyway. I would not expect to have a useful speed range on a shaper without either a massive motor or the odd belt change. Or a servo.

As you have pointed out Chris a VFD would be very useful on a big impeller dust system.

I have installed VfDs on three milling machines, a lathe, bandsaws, gear head drill presses. If nothing else the soft start feature is very welcome. Three phase for the masses. What’s not to like?

Greg

[Jim Becker]

VFDs have been used for many years on wood lathes...pretty common actually other than at the lower end. They also make sense for tools like drill presses and VFD or other variable speed setups are the, albeit with few choices. I question how valuable they are for many other kinds of tools that generally work best at a single cutting speed, other than providing for use of 3 phase motors off single phase power where that is a need or desire on a per tool bases, rather than putting in an expensive RPC, etc.

[Mark Gibney]

Mark that's a shocking looking injury, looks like you went through the windscreen. Your recovery looks to be coming along well so that's good.

[Jared Sankovich]

More to the forum at hand, for woodworking I would find a VFD useful on any of my tools since, except for the shaper and drill press, all work in a fairly narrow range of speeds. My shapers get the belts changed with tooling changes, but most of my cutters require the same rpm anyway. I would not expect to have a useful speed range on a shaper without either a massive motor or the odd belt change. Or a servo.

Greg

I like vfds on shapers for fine tuning cutter speeds. It's nice to be able to dial in the speed to the material and cut. Sometimes a small change in feed speed and cutter rpm makes a big difference.

[Mark Hennebury]

Thanks Mark. I have healed up well, and the emergency doctor that sewed my face did a great job considering that it wasn't a clean cut.

Mark that's a shocking looking injury, looks like you went through the windscreen. Your recovery looks to be coming along well so that's good.