I recently traded into a 1989 fadal 4020 with a 15 hp spinde,can this machine run single phase? I'm not concerned about loosing a little torque, and would rather spend my money on tooling than a roto phase?

Yes but you will need the single phase transformer. Last I looked a good phase convertor was cheaper. You can contact Fadal for pricing and check, be sure to include install on your estimate unless you can tackle that yourself.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3079

Check this thread too.

Yeepman--
Running on single phase you can expect approximately 15% to 25% loss of performance. Basically that means you'll have to take lighter cuts an more of them rather than hogging out stock.

Neal :)

I have about 15 years experence as an industrial electrician so i can handle the wiring.then i programmed and ran a fadal 4020 for a small job shop for 4 more years.

The fadal manuals i have show how to retap the transformer in the back electrical cabinet just under the spindle drive,(it is there).The transformer is tapped for 240v 3 phase.I'm just not sure if it will work with the 15 hp spindle.
And is that all you have to do?

there are 2 versions of the 1170 surge board. Make sure that the voltage rating stated on the board supports the voltage you are hooking up to. Other than that, nothing else needs to be done except to check in the SETP parameters and set the 5% low to yes or no as appropriate.
Neal

got power to the machine today (single phase). The machine was wired 230 3 phase so i assumed the surge board was ok,the only other one i could find was 580v.

machine powered up ok, but when i went to jog it to the cold start position it wouldn't jog. the numbers for each axis would change as i moved the wheel but the table wouldn't move.no servo amplifier fualts.It appears that the y axis is at the negitive limit but i dont remember having to do anything special to jog off a limit.

will the way lube or spindle oil pressure switches keep the machine from jogging? its been 3 years since i ran one of these and i forget.

Run it on a CNC converter if its wired for 230v 3ph. American rotary is who we used and thier stuff is the best.

A single phase Fadal will have only 66% of rated power not 10-25% loss. This is due to the phasing on motors.

Our machine will ramp right up to 7500 like it on true 3 phase. Infact the balance is so good leg to leg it rivals power company incoming 3 phase.

XYZ