Newbie here. Hope I am not beating a dead horse here, but I have two question I would love to have answered by someone who has been there and done that. Circuit board fried one resistor. Have a friend who can repair it with new resistor. I just hope that we can find something ahead of it that caused resistor to fail. First question: the only way to bypass circuit board is to relplace single phase motor with 3 phase and install VFD. This is what have I seen on most of my searches. Is this absolutely true. Second question: I see dc controllers for motors online. I assume there is a reason for this not working or maybe causing some other issue. This is just info I might need in case circuit board repair fails. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Delta DL 40 .?
- Thread starter Dennis Mattiza
- Start date
As I understand it. DC controllers are for DC motors.
First take a picture of the existing motor and post it here, my suspicion is that it is a DC motor which will have brush caps visible on the outside of the motor housing. If it is a DC motor you would probably be able to purchase a new DC speed control, but first the condition of the motor must be determined. The things to look at is if the brushes are good then test the armature for shorted coils.
I will try and post a pic. It may take awhile because I’m an electronics buffoon. Thanks for your response. It is labeled a dc motor and it is original to this lathe.
If it is labeled as such a picture is unnecessary. Replacing the resistor on the speed controller may fix it but first pull the brushes out and if they are not worn down to nothing check for arcing damage on the brush which would indicate arcing at the commutator bars caused by shorted coils in the armature if so then the motor is toast.
Don, it is much appreciated. I will pull the motor in the morning and check it out. Are you saying that the act of that resistor frying could possibly have damaged the motor.?
No but the motor may have caused the speed controller to fail.
I'm not an electronics guy, but, I did have one of these in the college wood program I taught in, and the electrics fried. I had an electronic engineering technician program available to me, so they fixed it up. I don't remember changing the motor, maybe they did, but they did put a VFD in it, and as I remember it, there weren't any other real options. It was very nice to have the VFD.
The VFD is definitely a good option especially if the DC motor is toast because a three phase motor would cost less then a new DC motor.
A bit of Googling....... It seems there may have a couple variations of motor and drive assembly on this lathe. And mention of an upgraded controller kit from Delta for this lathe. Also a poster mentioned a burned up resistor in the controller. From those posts you might conclude there were problems with the original controller. If you can find a local electric motor repair facility they can check your motor to verify it's good. If good, it'll be easy to replace the controller with a new unit. That should be well under 300 bucks.
From a used motor listing on eBay it appears the original motor does not have an industry standard mounting. That complicates the VFD and 3 phase motor conversion unless you have the ability to fabricate a motor mounting, motor pulley, etc.
I certainly appreciate all the responses here. I will take this welcome info and move forward. I hope to be able to get it going. It has done everything expected of it so far, except this one hiccup.