Lathe motor- 3ph and inverter, or 1ph?
Turbo Mini Forums

So I've managed to get myself a nice small lathe which is ideal size for my garage.

However as with many industrial machines it is 3 phase and I only have domestic electrics. It is a 2 HP motor.

After trawling ebay it seems I have two options-

1) Buy a package for about £300 comprising of a 220v 3 phase motor and an inverter to control it

2) Buy a single phase motor for about £100

So really any opinions? I would rather fork out now and get the proper tackle if for whatever reason the single phase motor won't be up to the job.
I know that the inverter does give a few advantages such as speed control, reversing, but the lathe has a proper gearbox and reversing on the power traverse, so really I don't need these features especially.

i have a single phase motor on my myford, reverse is on the switch and the gears, its not the quickest thing in the world but with household electrics its good enough.

Maybe 2 other factors you want to key into this
Depends how bigger work piece you plan to spin?
How much time you want to spend on the lathe?

Edited by munnracing on 4th May, 2010.

A single phase should be fine, for a hobbyist type lathe such as you hope to put into your garage. (This is if course an in my opinion style post)

You could bugger around with phase converter if you so wished. However the only real advantage of this is to enable the use of three phase equipment in the future, perhaps at the cost of 250 pounds plus.

The single phase motor will never quite have the torque of a three phase motor nor run quite as smooth, but it should work fine.

You`ll need to make sure your electrics are up to taking the duty of 3000 watts.

Edited by Sam on 5th May, 2010.

I was in the same boat as you tom, when I got my lift it was 3 phase, I went down the phase converter router and it works great on the lift, however it does draw 100w of power when turned on even with no load on it. When I got my lathe it came with both single and 3 phase motors, I put the single phase motor in to keep the converter for the lift.

I suppose it all depends if you plan to get any more machines, if you plan to get a small mill, pipe bender or somehting in the future then buy a converter, if you can't see any future use for 3 phase after the lathe then convert it to single phase.

If you do go down the phase converter route I highly recomend these people:

http://www.powercapacitors.co.uk/Power_Cap..._Downloads.html

I have their 4hp converter and Endaf has there 15hp rottary converter, really helpfull people on the phone, even know I told them I had my converter second hand.

Team Racing

I'd say go for the single phase motor,

i'd assume that your not going to be turning big stuff that often so it should be fine.