Blower wiring - Is split 220 kosher?

[Tony]

[Jesse Lackman1]

ie

good = seperate pole breakers to motor pair blacks - motor pair whites connected and brought back to neutral in breaker box

bad = seperate pole 240V breaker red and black to motor pair blacks - motor pair whites connected but do not return to breaker box neutral

How is SuperFlow wiring motors to have the problem of ruining the good motor if one fails?

[Tony]

[Jesse Lackman1]

[larrycavan]

Great Job Rick!

Only thing I would add is to bond all your motors together and run that bond to ground. IMO sub panels are the way to go because it gives you that extra breaker as assurance on each motor. An extra $100 spent on panel, breakers & switches is pretty cheap insurance. Plus you can get some really nice 110vac rocker switches and not need relays like some projects use.



Edited By larrycavan on 1203390464

[Tony]

These days a circuit breaker is probably cheaper than a relay anyway, and besides, they give excellent protection to individual motors if properly sized.

[jsa]

[thomasvaught-1]

How is SuperFlow wiring motors to have the problem of ruining the good motor if one fails?

Superflow does not return the neutral to the breaker box. They have 220 voltage to the motors and a Ground wire. Yes, they kill MOTORS (as in several) on occasion).

My schematic used relays so that you could turn on motor pairs using a simple 110 volt toggle switch for each pair. I did not show the breakers but for every motor pair, one black wire was on one phase and the other black wire was on the other phase. The neutrals (white wires were connected to each other and returned to the breaker neutral bar. Same deal for ground circuit (to the ground bar).

Why would you say that the motors can kill each other. Each motor is on its own 110 circuit.

Tom Vaught

[Jesse Lackman1]

I made an assumption that since your diagram had a red and black hot that the source was 240 volt and also assumed that might have been how Superflow wired their benches.

I know now my assumptions were wrong.

:p

[thomasvaught-1]

Quote:

"since your diagram had a red and black hot"

I apologize to the board for that screw-up Jesse!

I was trying to show that there were two circuits vs a 220 circuit. My mistake. I am not an Electrical Engineer as you can see. I simply went by "colored" wires being Hots, White as Neutral, and Green as Earth or ground.

Superflow is wired differently. I have a wiring schematic for their Flow Com/ SF-600 bench.

I can try and recreate the motor wiring schematic in excel if anyone is interested. The drawing is typically in all SF owners manuals.

Tom Vaught

[106-1194218389]

Tom,
I for one would like to see that. Always good to have something else to look at.

Thanks,
John

[49-1183904562]

OK;

Here we go I have been stewing over how best to do this and just took Toms method of using Excel and Drawing in the spreadsheet, It works and I could insert pictures. So here are the first two drawings, both using sub panel the first using the Payne controller 240VAC to the controller and two motors all other motors on 120VAC. The second is similar but the first motor runs off a HF router controller or Variac and the rest are switched. I will try to put something together with basic pics of wiring in the panel and sub panel.

Rick

[49-1183904562]

#2

The second is similar but the first motor runs off a HF router controller or Variac and the rest are switched. I will try to put something together with basic pics of wiring in the panel and sub panel.

Rick

[Tony]

Rick, there may be much greater convenience of operation if two motors have speed controls.

The reason being that with only one fully adjustable motor, there can be no range overlap. Switching in an extra motor may increase flow to the point where there is still too much, even with the speed knob backed right off to zero.

Alternatively switching off a motor may reduce the flow so much, that even with the adjustable speed knob set flat out, test pressure may still be a whisker low . The result can sometimes be fairly frustrating when trying to adjust test pressure.

If two motors are made adjustable, either independently or together, there will always be plenty of adjustment range well beyond switching in or out a whole extra motor.

Only a small point, but it removes some of the annoyance from flow adjustment.

[86rocco1]

With a variac, there MIGHT be a little bit of overlap as many variacs will go past 100%, mine for example goes to about 115%, I haven't checked to see what effect the extra 15% has on the output of the motor.