110 v motor with speed controller

[matthew peters]

Hi all thanks for letting me join im generally very good at working out elecrical things but this has got me a little stumped.

I am trying to install this speed controller to my 110v ac motor (please see attached photos) I have been told this is the correct controller for this motor and the job it has to do but all the instructions are in chinese which ive translated but they arent any help. this motor is off a small fairground organ and it is used to pull cardboard book music through a keyframe bridge. we need to be able to adjust the speed as well as the torque as weve tried another speed controller which just adjusted the voltage but it didnt allow enough torque to pull the music through.This speed controller is designed to do this. im finding the wiring on the motor confusing and also the speed controller can any body help me please???

 

[Darkwood]

do you understand the theory of vsd's .... if you dont have enough torque you are probably overspeeding by a 15+% if heavy loaded or underspeeding so much the torque is low .... what speed % of the motors synch' speed are you running at ... because you are feeding an air ducted piping system its not as simple as adjusting the air velocity it has to be designed at such ... its very easy to over torque a motor in such a set up.... it goes against common thinking but a motor at full speed probably takes less current than at lower speeds due to air flow, cavitation etc etc

 

[Marvo]

Okay, from what Ican see you've got a standard single phase motor so it shouldn't be that tricky. The speed controller supports forward and reverse direction changing, does your motor need to run in both CW and CCW directions to perform the task it's doing?

 

[matthew peters]

thank you for the speedy response, the motor is only required to go clockwise

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I'm not convinced about that controller being suitable.

First of all, it's not a matter of controlling the torque, you do not need to do that. A keyframe motor must run at rock-solid speed regardless of the torque it is supplying, which depends only on how stiff the music is in the frame. Your motor is a split-phase capacitor-run induction motor of which the speed is almost independent of torque and voltage and set only by the frequency (other than variations of a few % which can be done by voltage control). The motor can be slowed further by reducing the voltage but only because it becomes incapable of providing the needed torque, in which case the speed collapses and is almost impossible to regulate as you found.

To alter the speed of an induction motor effectively you need an inverter, a.k.a. VFD (variable-frequency drive) which constructs an AC waveform of required frequency and voltage. The controller you have appears to be some sort of very basic inverter drive, but possibly one that depends on a feedback generator on the motor. Googling 'US-52' leads me to think that it was originally intended to work with a specific type of motor, hence the lack of technical info and the dedicated plug on the end of the motor cable. The windings would be connected to red white & black (one drawing I found suggested that red would be common, white & black to the two ends of the capacitor winding). The other two leads - blue/green & yellow - appear to be for an AC tachogenerator on the motor shaft, which of course your motor does not have. Whether the controller will work without this feedback I am not sure.

Can you post any more info you have about it? The translated Chinese for example. I wouldn't like to suggest connecting it up without a bit more than what we see here. The other thing that concerns me is that you can get one shipped free from China for $20, which is rather on the low side for any kind of inverter drive!

PS DW this only drives the keyframe, not the blower. It's just a conveyor belt full of holes!
PS Matthew however you end up controlling the speed, make it good! I hate listening to unsteady music - one otherwise splendid Gavioli for many years had too much resistance in series with a DC motor of too low a voltage which caused the speed to vary with the number of notes played.

 

[Marvo]

I don't thiink he's trying to control the torque as such, I took it the he'd tried to reduce the speed by reducing the voltage applied and it had resulted in insufficient torque (I assume the motor stalled when under load) so he's now going with a PWM type speed control to maintain sufficient torque at lower speeds.

I think these might be relevant although one of the docs refers to 230v. I'll come up with more later when I have time.

View attachment usa_sc_us.pdf

View attachment Us_Series.pdf

 

[Darkwood]

Can we ask a simple question..... why are you trying to alter the speed of this motor in the first place?

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Those data sheets seem to confirm that the controller is part of a range of matched controllers and motors. Pity there's nothing about the tacho arrangement. Of course the option exists to change the motor too, if this device can't control it, as an alternative to getting another inverter.

Hopefully this is to do with adjusting the speed of particular music books to match the arranger's idea of the proper tempo to the organ owner's idea, rather than making up for an unsuitable mechanical reduction ratio between the motor and the drive roller.

See 89 key marenghi organ GDSF 2012 (keyframe) - YouTube for an idea of how fast tthese run. Don't judge the organ's sound - they always sound odd from the keyframe because you can't hear all the pipes from this position at the end of the organ.

 

[Marvo]

Why do you state in the thread title that the motor is 110v when it says 220v on the motor info plate? Has it been rewound or altered?

I'd like to see another couple of photos of the motor info plate from different angles so I can read all the details.

My initial observations and concerns are;

1. The discrepancy in voltage between your info and the info on the motor.
3. The speed controller is way over-complicated for what you need.
5. There will be a limit to the amount of speed reduction you can apply for 2 reasons;

Firstly the internal cooling fan inside the motor will become too inefficient if you lower the speed too much and the motor will run very hot.

Secondly the motor probably has an internal centrifugal start switch which could operate at around 80% of the motors full RPM speed. This means as soon as you reduce the motor speed to 80% or less the centrifugal switch will reconnect the start winding.

At this point one of two things will happen, either the motor speed will increase due to the higher torque which will introduce constant cycling (on/off) of the start switch or the motor speed won't increase due to the mechanical load characteristics and the start winding will stay permanently connected and cause overheating because of the higher current draw.

So a couple of questions need answers at this point. Why the voltage discrepancy? How much speed control do you need and why? More info from the motor plate would be good.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I would be surprised if it had a centrifugal switch. Looks like capacitor-run to me.

 

[Marvo]

Might be, I'm not sure, could be PSC or CSR/CSIR. I'd like to see the rest of the info on the motor to confirm.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I was also puzzled by the 110V reference. Fairground stuff is usually 230V AC or 110V DC. It certainly looks like the motor has been rewired if not rewound though, as it has two reds & two blacks. AEI fhp motors were usually red/white/green/blue and there are stubs of what may be the original red & white linking two terminals there. But that's not surprising as the leads often fail where they enter the case.

I can't help thinking that I would be more inclined to try and pick up a DC shunt gearmotor such as the Parvalux. Many organs use these in 110V or 220V versions either driven from 110V DC via a resistance if the organ is run from a showmans' generator or transformer/rectifier, or 220V DC with thyristor speed control from 230V AC which is of course more stable and gives excellent variability.

OP, also, what is your keyscale? I can't help thinking it's quite a small motor at 1/25 hp. A typical 89 key might have more like 1/8hp.

 

[Marvo]

I can see a '0.55' reference on the data plate which I thought might be the HP rating or the kW rating. Where did you see it was 1/25 HP? Even though it's a very old motor and it's difficult to estimate from photos I don't think the 1/25th HP looks right in relation to the motor frame size. Lots of unanswered questions with this one......hopefully Matthew has some answers for us.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

To the left of the 0.55. I think it says hp 1/25, then we don't see the A but I took 0.55 as the current. It's tiny, he could wrap his fingers halfway round it.

 

[matthew peters]

Hi all thanks for the repliesi got no email notifications to inform me I had replies!

Firstly the organ runs from 110v it always has done we've owned it three years now so does the blower.
The motor and recently been rewound as it was showing signs of age.
The problem we have is we tried reducing voltage and the motor didn't have enough power to turn the rollers.
The rollers have been recovered so it's not the rollers.
Some of the songs play to fast hence the need for controlling the speed as the thickness of the card varies
also we restore fair ground organs and know the ins and outs of them.