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**ryanjones2150** · 01-07-2017, 08:13 PM

About a year ago I asked the power company here if they could bring 3ph power down to my house. Between the hysterical laughter, I managed to discern a ballpark figure of $15k, and I live in a neighborhood in the city. That price included a new transformer and additional power being brought from about 2-3 blocks away. Maybe your situation would be better? <br />
<br />
But a guy down the road from me runs a whole bunch of machines, including a leblonde 17" lathe. I'll see what he's running and ask what lessons he's learned. No welder in that shop though, he comes to my little hole in the wall for that. I don't know anyone that runs a welder on a rotary phase converter.

**piniongear** · 01-07-2017, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by ryanjones2150 View Post

About a year ago I asked the power company here if they could bring 3ph power down to my house. Between the hysterical laughter, I managed to discern a ballpark figure of $15k, and I live in a neighborhood in the city. That price included a new transformer and additional power being brought from about 2-3 blocks away. Maybe your situation would be better? <br />
<br />
But a guy down the road from me runs a whole bunch of machines, including a leblonde 17" lathe. I'll see what he's running and ask what lessons he's learned. No welder in that shop though, he comes to my little hole in the wall for that. I don't know anyone that runs a welder on a rotary phase converter.

Thanks Ryan. The 3 phase was put in my house when it was built in 1957 to run the central air conditioner. Of course I expanded that source to my shop.
So my brother-in-law came down to visit and was awed by the fact that I had 3 phase power.
He goes back home in rural Wisconsin and contacts his electric supplier.
Jim told me the price they quoted him was for one transformer, one power pole and a few hundred yards of wiring to his shop. Cost? About $70,000 to $75,000. This was 10 years back and needless to say Jim forgot about having 3 phase very quickly.

So back to my problem....... I can of course easily use a pigtail and run the Dynasty 200 on single phase. I like the 3 phase of course but I guess single phase would be fine.
The air compressor can have the single phase motor installed.
Then all I need is to run the other machines with a top HP rating of 3HP and the 2HP mill will be the most used machine.
So thanks for your comments and I think I have the answers to go forward. The aforementioned set up seems the simple way to go and the rotary phase converter will need to be a 5HP for those machines.
Perry

**Aeronca41** · 01-07-2017, 10:29 PM

There is some hazy thought in the back of my mind about Miller inverters and rotary phase converters, but I cannot recall what it was about-I seem to associate it with a post by Cruizer, but that may be wrong. I can't even remember if it was a positive or negative comment. If I were to consider running my Dynasty 200 on a rotary converter, I would first call Miller and see what they have to say. Give them the whole picture. I did that before plugging it into my Trailblazer, just to be sure.

**piniongear** · 01-08-2017, 04:38 AM

Good point Aeronca41..
I will talk to Miller but I think I have decided to run the D200 off straight single phase power. It will be a simple rewire at the new place and I have the pigtail already made up.
Perry

**Lostone** · 01-08-2017, 09:45 AM

I bought a 3 phase tire changer off Craigslist a few years ago. I came with a rotary phase converter. The converter was so loud i sold the converter for more then I paid for the tire changer and bought a used motor to run the hyd pump on the machine. I even made money in the whole deal.

**ryanjones2150** · 01-09-2017, 12:40 AM

I was looking at those rotary phase converters a while back and saw several guys posting online about making their own. Looked like a pretty fun project and might even learn a thing or three along the way. Still not officially off my to-do list, but it does keep getting backed down. We'll see what happens when I run across a screaming deal on a Bridgeport, but I'll probably look harder at a VFD for that.

**Portable Welder** · 01-09-2017, 07:29 AM

I have an American Rotary phase Converter to run a 1/4" x 10 plate shear and press brake.
For the air compressor you will probably want to go with a ADX series, On hydraulic equipment and hard starting air compressors you need to at min double the size of the Rotary phase converter of the biggest motor, that only leaves 5 Hp left to run your Dynasty.
The 15 Hp converter sounds about right to me.
I have the 40 hp phase converter to run my stuff, it never hurts to have a little extra, there are things that can affect the performance of the phase converter such as incoming power, at certain times of the day the voltage might drop a bit, you might be sharing a transformer with neighbors that pull power away.

In my situation, I had to have the power company install a bigger transformer because it was undersized for the power I was drawing, unlikely but possible, you might have a 208 volt transformer and not a 230 volt.

One thing I will say about American Rotary is that there customer service was excellent, they helped me determine that I had a transformer that wasn't up to snuff so they helped me boost up the made up phase until the power company installed the right transformer, we then had to rebalance it back down after the new transformer, they talked me through everything.
That was worth a lot to me.

**Broccoli1** · 01-09-2017, 03:33 PM

Originally posted by piniongear View Post

Good point Aeronca41..
I will talk to Miller but I think I have decided to run the D200 off straight single phase power. It will be a simple rewire at the new place and I have the pigtail already made up.
Perry

the Dynasty won't even know the difference on Single Phase.

**Tinker Joe 2** · 01-09-2017, 06:21 PM

I have an American Rotary phase converter, 10 years of use and only had to replace on capacitor, its a 5 HP and I have a homemade one that a friend of mine built, it on the tube "meyoucajun1" if not its on "meyoucajun" I have loaded up that American and it will take it, they are great to deal with, could have got three phase and guess I should have but, 5,000 for a 30' pole instead of the 25' one more wire and a transformer, I will keep my cash.

**piniongear** · 01-09-2017, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by Portable Welder View Post

I have an American Rotary phase Converter to run a 1/4" x 10 plate shear and press brake.
For the air compressor you will probably want to go with a ADX series, On hydraulic equipment and hard starting air compressors you need to at min double the size of the Rotary phase converter of the biggest motor, that only leaves 5 Hp left to run your Dynasty.
The 15 Hp converter sounds about right to me.
I have the 40 hp phase converter to run my stuff, it never hurts to have a little extra, there are things that can affect the performance of the phase converter such as incoming power, at certain times of the day the voltage might drop a bit, you might be sharing a transformer with neighbors that pull power away.

In my situation, I had to have the power company install a bigger transformer because it was undersized for the power I was drawing, unlikely but possible, you might have a 208 volt transformer and not a 230 volt.

One thing I will say about American Rotary is that there customer service was excellent, they helped me determine that I had a transformer that wasn't up to snuff so they helped me boost up the made up phase until the power company installed the right transformer, we then had to rebalance it back down after the new transformer, they talked me through everything.
That was worth a lot to me.

Good points all. My transformer located on the pole serves my house alone. No one else has 3 phase.
I have a Delta wired set up with the 'High Leg' being 208 volts. So I assume that transformer must be 208 volts.
I run the air compressor 24/7 so that means the converter would also have to run 24/7.
Since I have the new single phase 5HP motor it makes sense to just run single phase. Ditto for the Dynasty and as Broccali suggests, the Dynasty will not know the difference.
That leave the smaller HP items to run off the converter.
I think I will wind up buying an American Rotary 7HP model and I am leaning towards the ADX series.
Thank you,
Perry

**MAC702** · 01-09-2017, 10:36 PM

A "high leg" of 208V is for that high-phase-to-neutral. You should have a 240V phase-to-phase voltage on that Delta-connected transformer. I'm not a transformer expert, but as an electrician, I'd call it a 240V system, not a 208V system, which is a term I would use for a Wye-connected 120/208V transformer.

And, yeah, I'm jealous.

**ryanjones2150** · 01-10-2017, 04:50 AM

So, Joe....what do you think about that converter your buddy built? I'm interested in maybe building one.

**Synchroman** · 01-10-2017, 07:53 PM

I have a Rotary Phase Converter that I built up myself fro a 7.5 HP Baldor 3 phase 1,750 rpm motor and the other various components needed. At idle, it draws 14 amps with a power factor correction capacitor and approximately 20 amps running a 3 hp milling machine. I understand that for motor horsepower, you have to de-rate the rotary phase converter about 1/3. Running a welder and a compressor would be quite a load. You would need to consider the starting amperage draw of a compressor. Also, you would need to know the average current draw of the Dynasty and add that to the draw of the RPC and size accordingly. For the record, I have heard that the two most difficult tasks for a Rotary Phase Converter would be a welder and a compressor, since they both have a starting surge and it's difficult to tell what your settings will be on the welder at any given time.

I guess we need a bit more information to determine the size o RPC needed.

**Tinker Joe 2** · 01-10-2017, 08:41 PM

Ryan, if one has the three phase motor and the electrical box and a lot of things in there that I don't fully understand he could build one but its over my head to build one, few little problems that I did get fixed but for what I paid for the American Rotary think it was 750.00 they were super to deal with, my thoughts, Joe

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Dynasty 200 Rotary Phase Converter question

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