Model Forum / General / Models / May 2010

I (somewhere) have a CD from that stout fellow Stevenson with the manual
for a Bridgie on it.

Since I no longer own the machine, you're welcome to it. Email me (at
nigel dot eaton at gmail dot com) with an address and I'll pop it in the
post.

I ran mine on a Powerwave static converter with no problem. In fact, I
still have the converter. I should probably sell it... ;^)

First off all Bridgies have the switch on the side, many with spurious
legends on them.
If it 3 position it's a single speed motor, it needs three positions
as it has to reverse because when you engage backgear the spindle goes
the wrong way.

If it's a 5 position switch then it's two speed and you need a
CONVERTOR as it needs 440v 3 phase

If it is the popular 3 position  model then an INVERTOR will manage
it.

Now the next problem.
Many of these although made under license by Allballs and Shipley had
the American motor fitted with 6 coils / 9 wires as opposed to our
more technical advanced 3 coil / 6 wired metric framed motors.

They can still be run on an invertor but you need to alter the wiring
in the connector box to suit.

You can do this yourself easily with a wiring diagram and an off the
shelf inverter far cheaper than Newton Tesla can offer you one.

Newton Tesla will not be able to offer you a motor as they are very
special to Bridgeport with an extended shaft to carry the variable
speed.

A two speed can be wired as a single speed but requires the expertise
of a rewind shop as they have to get the start points out from inside
the windings.

John S.

Sorry for the delay in this saga, I was rudely interupted by having to
go to work.

I now have the problem cracked, the clues were in JS's post  about the
motor wiring and another John at Newton Tesla who have provided me
with a Mitsubishi inverter and and one of their control stations.

On the motor plate there are two choices for wiring, "hi-volts &
lo-volts"  the motor as it was was hi-volt (delta I think) and it
needed to be changed to star. Since all the wires are numbered, it was
a simple job (even for me) to change it over. For the record if anyone
cares to look back at this post on my motor what I did was:

Connect No's 4-5-6 together.

Then 9 & 3 to one phase

8 & 2 to one phase

7 & 1  to one phase.

I had got a length of 4 core cable on a scrap chit from work for the 3
phase side (3 phases + earth) and some advice from the sparks, then
followed the wiring diagram for the inverter, quite simple really and
also hooked in the remote station that gives full speed control, jog,
forward & reverse. The inverter gives a read out of frequency it's
programmed to give a max of around 58hz and the jog function is 5hz so
the spindle speed is ultra low.

I hooked the single phase up to 13 amp plug and got the wife to switch
it on so I was in no danger.........

It all worked perfectly apart from the rotation so I shut down waited
for the recommended 10 mins and changed around two phases, job done.

Next things that came to light were that I couldn't select back gear
on the head, this proved to be that the lever that pulls out the
detent plunger had sheared the hook off the end, (could be I did that
when lifting it off the trailer so I'll give the seller the benifit of
the doubt)  I phoned Hardinge in the hope that it would be as cheap as
chips to buy a new one and it not to be worth the time to make a new
one.....of course it is the old type and to change it to the latest
version would have cost about a 100 notes....I declined of course.

The other problem that had me scratching my arse was the vari-speed
seemed to be working in reverse, turns out that the nugget that
changed the spindle bearings wound the chain on to the shaft the wrong
way, only took a couple of minutes to sort out but annoying all the
same.

There remains a problem in there that when it is on max speed it
sounds like one of the pulleys is hitting the cover, that one will
need to wait a while until I whip off the motor and cover to have a
look at what's going on.

I am going to remove all the native Bridgy electrics and put aside
incase I ever sell it on,  I will run the X-axis drive from a 110v
transformer and the Sino DRO is a straight 13 amp plug-in.

Thanks to all who chipped in I now understand the wiring for the flux
capacitor..... it now makes sense although if the wires had not been
numbered then I would have been f*cked...... and a special thanks to
Nigel Eaton for the manuals on CD, like I said Nigel if you are
heading this way give me a call and pop in for a visit.

Cheers

Rich