vertical bandsaw preference and VFD?

[allessence]

I have one band here. I'll be ordering a couple more from DCT. But what should I order?

I will primarily be working with alum 1/8" to 1/2" for the time being.

The wheels for the cart are actually going to be offset to the corners more or less. roughly making the area about 4ft larger than the stock base. I figure with the drop down and the extra width/length it should be pretty stable.

[precisionworks]

I will primarily be working with alum 1/8" to 1/2" for the time being.

See page 8 in the M K Morse Blade Catalog

Rule of thumb for teeth per inch is that you always want 3 teeth engaged in the material. Also, be sure to follow the break in procedure for new blades.

See page 21 for the radius chart.

[precisionworks]

But what should I order?

I've used the Matrix II bimetal blades from M K Morse for years (Stacey at DCT can order these for you). Page 20 in their catalog shows a wide selection in 1" x .035" variable pitch, zero rake.

4/6 will cut 1" to 2" thick solid rectangles

6/10 will cover 1/2" to 1"

10/14 can cut as thin as 1/4", and will cut up to 1/2" if needed

Those are the three (full width) blades to start with for your saw.

primarily be working with alum 1/8" to 1/2"

The 10/14 blade will do a nice job on those, as long as blade speed is correct (as in FAST )

[Dave Lee]

Originally Posted by allessence

No fork lift. at some point I'd love to find and older Hyster with articulating axles. The ground around here is soft and uneven.

I have a trailer with an over head gantry/trolley, I built almost 20years ago.

It's time for a update to it though. When I originally built it, it was as a single axle to haul Old 60 vintage SAAB cars. The as I moved into newer SAABs I added the second axle and about 12" to the overall length and reinforced the neck.

Then around the same time, I came up with the notion that I was tired of all the heavy lifting and built the over head contraption.

I was thinking I'd use 4 or 5" channel and have proper cross braces and maybe a full length runners tying into the back.

As it is now I am using 1.25" 1/8" wall square tubing with angle brackets at the ends this works great when the loads are at the edges like in cars, but with all the heavier equipment I've been moving you can see the center of the bars are bending slightly with load on.

Thanks for sharing that Jennifer. I often thought of a trailer like that. Never got around to it, though. I liked those old Saabs. There was a guy down in Delaware that had a bunch of them. He took a station wagon and cut it down into a pickup. Did a really nice job of it.

You do a lot of really neat stuff!


Dave

[allessence]

Originally Posted by Dave Lee

Thanks for sharing that Jennifer. I often thought of a trailer like that. Never got around to it, though. I liked those old Saabs. There was a guy down in Delaware that had a bunch of them. He took a station wagon and cut it down into a pickup. Did a really nice job of it.

You do a lot of really neat stuff!


Dave

Hi Dave, Thanks.

I love the early 60's and 70's. I prefer the 2 strokes. Nothing like the sound coming down the road. I have 2) GT850 and a 1966 Monte with rag top. Just waiting for restoration.

The trailer works great. I've used it more in the past year than I had in the previous 20. Nice thing is it's always there and for the 41.00 Now 60.00 for the year. It's still worth it.

Just last week alone I moved 75 bales or 2nd cut hay, the bandsaw and now I have the new 1.5" X 16" red oak planking sitting on it.

[allessence]

I ordered the blades today. I bought 1/4" X 10-14 tooth and 1" X 8-12 t MKmorse from DCT.

I have 1/2X 24t X100ft stock to weld up and some 1"X4T bands to shorten to try.

Good place to start I guess.

[allessence]

Mobile base completed. It is gobbler green underneath and white everywhere else.

Sorry for the blurriness of the pictures, I think I drank to my tea.

[allessence]

Here it is in all it's glory. I moved the saw again by myself though a friend did say he'd help. I was just to impatient.


My shoulders are sore today. I tilted it one way then put a board under than tilted it the other way until it was a little higher than the dolley.

I laid strips of metal between the 2 rails and a 2X4 from one inside rail to the other and it pretty much just slid right into place.

The wad of newspaper in the picture is protection from green gobbler paint. I spilled about 1/2 the can. Stuff is almost impossible to clean up. I figured I'd let it harden than peel it off the floor.

[allessence]

I received the VFD today. I looked at the manual but have a few questions.

The saw has a 3 phase fuse box. This connects to the Magstarter.


I have a 20amp 240V outlet all ready wired to the panel. The VFD has on/off or start/stop.

My question is do I wire the VFD before the fuse box, before the mag starter or do I remove both and just use the VFD as power, on/off?

[GWIZ]

Don't run the welder from the VFD.
By what precisionworks said in the past the VFD should be used to control the motor directly.
Not to use the machines on/off controls, use the VFD.

He stated in the past you can blow a VFD if you unplug the motor while the VFD is powering/running the motor.
that's why you don't connect the VFD before the machines switches.

Look at the manual but I'm thinking the VFD should be wired directly to the motor.

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from another thread

Originally Posted by precisionworks

Benefits - you save $200-$300 per machine.

Drawbacks:

It gets mounted on a cart of some type, which takes a fair amount of space. Or on a two wheeler which is easily tipped over. Or it gets put down somewhere that it can (and will) get knocked off.

You can't use machine controls for Fwd/Stop/Rev, speed, etc. Which means you always have to use the keypad. All machine controls, like a drum switch on a lathe or mill, are nonfunctional - which is a pretty backward way to set up a machine tool.

If you left the machine controls in place & disconnect the motor from the drive under power, you'll damage the drive. Some fail on the first attempt, some go for a while, but it's only a matter of time before the drive is nonfunctional. They do, however, make an interesting paper weight

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This topic comes up at least once a week on the electronic control forums where I post. Consensus from the EE's and ME's is that it's cheaper to have one drive per machine, wired in so that the machine's drum switch is used to command the VFD to Fwd/Stop/Rev plus a speed pot for remote speed control.