TB Woods VFD?

R

rockbox

Joined
Apr 4, 2010
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Dealers Electric has the TB Woods 3HP Nema 12 VFD on sale for 200 dollars. VFD. Does anyone have any experience with this unit?
 
rockbox said:
Dealers Electric has the TB Woods 3HP Nema 12 VFD on sale for 200 dollars. VFD. Does anyone have any experience with this unit?
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I recently put a 2 HP 3PH motor and a 2HP VFD from Dealers Electric like the one you posted on my grinder. That box is dustproof but you need to seal any holes where you insert wires. I added an external potentiometer for speed control and so far I'm very happy with it.
 
K R Johnson said:
I recently put a 2 HP 3PH motor and a 2HP VFD from Dealers Electric like the one you posted on my grinder. That box is dustproof but you need to seal any holes where you insert wires. I added an external potentiometer for speed control and so far I'm very happy with it.
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Thanks. I was looking at my option and this seems like a deal considering it comes in a dust proof enclosure. All the nema4 VFD start at 375 on up.
 
For some reason I think TB woods was bought out by Vacon. Not sure but I was searching for the same thing, a VFD to do 3hp on single phase 220. I got the Vacon unit and WHAT AN OVERPRICED, MICKEY MOUSE, TINKER TOY, PLASTIC KNOBBED, FRAGILE, BARBIE DOLL PLAY TOY, PIECE OF JUNK!!! Bought it for a customer for over $600 and ate the cost, haven't been able to return it. Afraid to even try it cause I know it will break, and the switches aren't warrantied. I don't talk bad about many products but the one I got sucks.

The one you may be looking at may be fine, but the VACON unit I got sucks!
 
Wow, that's a humorously pointed critique, Travis. Barbie-doll play toy! LMAO.

Rockbox, sorry I don't have experience with this VFD, mine is a Teco FM50 203, I just wanted to say I have a 3hp VFD and run a 3hp grinder and a 2hp grinder with it, it works well and it's nice to have that extra hogging power when needed.
 
Rock, I don't have the Teco in an enclosure- the price was like $180 without, so I went for it. I put the VFD outside the grinding room, high up on the wall under a shelf, and I go blow it out now ad then with the compressor. It doesn't get very dusty at all. I ran wire from the auxiliary terminals through the wall to remote switches and a speed pot next to the grinders. Here's a pic of the remote box with grinder select switch:


IMG_6035.JPG
 
Salem Straub said:
Rock, I don't have the Teco in an enclosure- the price was like $180 without, so I went for it. I put the VFD outside the grinding room, high up on the wall under a shelf, and I go blow it out now ad then with the compressor. It doesn't get very dusty at all. I ran wire from the auxiliary terminals through the wall to remote switches and a speed pot next to the grinders. Here's a pic of the remote box with grinder select switch:


IMG_6035.JPG
Click to expand...

It's funny that "Green Machine" gets a blue label
 
Salem Straub said:
Rock, I don't have the Teco in an enclosure- the price was like $180 without, so I went for it. I put the VFD outside the grinding room, high up on the wall under a shelf, and I go blow it out now ad then with the compressor. It doesn't get very dusty at all. I ran wire from the auxiliary terminals through the wall to remote switches and a speed pot next to the grinders. Here's a pic of the remote box with grinder select switch:


IMG_6035.JPG
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think I might go this route. More people have used the Teco and it comes with a 2 year warranty. What value POT do you need to get for the speed control?
 
Rock, the pot is 10k ohms. Actually, I returned the first VFD I got- it blew up, which may have been my fault. I had it mounted directly on the grinder for testing/building. The service guys at Factorymation where I got it were awesome, I got a new one at no charge except shipping.

Numbers, funny you should notice that. It was the last label I made, I ran out of green label tape just before that. I thought it was ironic in a small way. I wondered if anyone would notice, but thought it would take too much attention to detail.
 
TB Woods vfds are some of the best in the biz instead of coming on here and asking some people who might know what they’re talking about why don’t you go do a search on the web and find out first hand it want take long to find the answer. Sorry if I come off rude but it is obvious most here don’t have a clue about TB WOODS VFD’S..... And just like typing something because they can even if they don’t know what they are talking about, This type of thing been going on way to much here lately.

PS That is good deal and would buy if I was in your shoes.
 
pheer327 said:
I was talking about tb woods ! (award) not vacon they are two separate companies
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It took you 6 months to respond to that?
Your post #15 also had a 6 month lag to the original thread
why not let it go?


I trusted Travis's input-
He's not wrong about the takeover
http://www.vacon.com/Default.aspx?id=470061


Even if Vacon and TB are separate companies and the quality of the TB hasn't diminished.

I still assert that an award in electronics design 20 years ago is a long time ago.
Especially in something that evolves so quickly.

Lots of folks here use them and are happy with them, but of those they still smoke one once in a while.

Even one lost controller that is not covered by warranty, let alone shipping puts you into the price range where you can compare the well sealed ones.
If you consider the lost time/sales during the downtime, it's even more significant.


The original poster linked a NEMA 12 3 Hp for $200 which seems like a good value as long as you keep in mind the possibility that it may fail due to metal dust intrusion.
or
You take the time and expense to construct a better enclosure.

If you look at the kbac27d in the NEMA 4 enclosure, it is only $150 more than this one.
If you build an enclosure you have to take into account proper heat sinking - aluminum.
that will be an expensive enclosure.

If you also take into account the time lost in building it, where you could have produced and sold another knife
then that enclosure becomes very expensive.

I like the support that the KB products have online and in users actual experiences in the knifemaking world.
Rob Frink's suggested settings would take a tremendous amount of error to figure out on your own.
Especially when most users won't even search out and read the manual for themselves.

That became very clear when reading the machining forums, where somebody bought a VFD for a mill, higher HP and higher $
but they had no understanding of it, didn't read the manual, couldn't read the manual, the manual was in Chinese, it wouldn't support the voltage they needed,either input, or output....that sort of thing. they spent $1000 looking for a deal and ending up with scrap.

I like products that have good engineering support.

The TB woods units seem to be best suited for integration into power cabinets or environments that are less harsh.

I've searched far and wide for the best value in a VFD and still like the KBAC27D

I would buy a TB, but all the dealers you can use, won't ship to Canada
Of course I still search ebay weekly for the really cheap ones that may be worth building an enclosure, but the price is still too close to bother with.
 
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I have the one in the original post and only have used it to power my three phase surfase grinder and it was worked fine for that.
 
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