I have so much other shit I should be doing, but I have to poke around this new toy.
I looks like it'll be easy to redrill the base plate, as long as I can physically get the snout of the new motor out far enough to line up with the belt. It also looks like the shaft diameter on the existing motor is around 1-5/8" and anything new is likely going to be 1.5" so that'll be a PITA.
The picture doesn't do it justice, but that motor is fawkin' huuuuge.
For reference, this is the 20hp baldor that's sitting around waiting for me to gather the rest of the parts to build an RPC. Easily half the size for twice the HP.
Controls are pretty simple. I'll likely run it off a VFD, at least until I get the RPC built, so I'll be able to tap in to these control wires to run the VFD.
The amount of rusty sludge in the bottom of this box makes my think this machine may have been in a shallow flood. Everything else is soaked in oil and grease and there's no reason there should be that much rust in there. There's nothing really mechanical that would have been submerged so it's not a big deal, but kind of strange none the less.
Well, it was sketchy as fuck, but it's in the shop. Haven't cleared it's final resting spot yet, but it's pointed at it.
It almost didn't free-spool off the trailer and try to go through my shop door either.
The bad news, is my fear that it has a high voltage motor turned out to be true. The auction house didn't list any voltages on the shit they sold. Some of the smaller stuff that had exposed labels you could get luck enough to read, but not this one.
550v, 10hp and 1800 RPM. Highly likely that this is the original motor to 1948.
Plenty of cheap 10hp 230v motors on ebay, so i should be able to repower it without spending a fortune. Bad part is everything modern is a 213 frame, which is quite a bit smaller than the 324 that's in it. I need to poke around some more and see if there are other mounting holes. Otherwise, hopefully it won't be a big deal to make an adapter plate to stick the smaller footprint motor in there.
So it's only been a little over 13 months since I brought the Monarch home. I figured it was finally time to actually get it working.
After measuring the old and new motors, I found I needed to lift the new one up about 2.5" and forward a good 3". So I made some slotted pockets out of some scrap 1.5x3" bar that was in one of the bins I bought at the same auction as the monarch. I slotted for 5/8" carriage bolts to lock in to them as I didn't think I'd be able to reach the heads underneath.
I welded those to a couple pieces of 1" bar, which gave me the 2.5" I needed.
Of course, I bent the pivot rod on the mount plate when I was removing it and didn't have any 5/8" on the rack so I had to order a 2' piece from McMaster. That showed up today and I was able to cut it to size and chamfer the ends on the little lathe and get it back together.
Took a little wrestling, but I was able to bolt the adapter plate to the motor first, roll it up on to some cribbing and then slide it on to the main plate. Actually went way better than I expected.
It was also around this time that I noticed the pivot mounts had 3 different slots and I probably could have gotten away with a much shorter and simpler adapter....or none at all.
You'll also notice that I ended up with a new pulley on the new motor. Original plan was to try to salvage the old one, but 1) I couldn't get it off the old shaft....but was willing to cut the shaft off and bore it out if necessary and 2) The old shaft was like 1=3/4" and the new is 1-3/8" and I really didn't feel like making a bushing.
Luckily I found the pulley and correct size QD bushing on ebay between two differnt sellers for around $70 total. As a bonus, I was able to find a slightly larger pulley that almost perfectly made up for the slightly slower motor.
Still need to check final alignment on the belts and get everything tightened down, but it's a relief to finally have the motor in and be way closer to getting this thing spinning.
Only thing left to do is convert the the control cabinet to 230v from the 560v it was previously powered on. Once again, ebay FTW. I found the two coils for the main contactors for under $20 shipped for the pair and then the 3 overload heaters for about $10 shipped. That should be all I need to get this thing moving on the 230v I have. The 3rd contactor on the upper right is for the coolant pump, which I don't plan on using for a while. I should be able to get a coil for that should the need arise.
These remaining parts should be delivered on Monday and will only take a few minutes to drop in. I'm planning on making up a power cord for it this weekend to feed it from the panel and also need to make a new cable from the contactors to the motors as I'll have more than doubled the amperage by dropping down to 230 and the old wires are way undersized for that. Also need to do a sanity check on the rest of the wiring and make sure I won't be overloading anything.
