Moved shop and... crap
So I moved my shop last weekend in -5 degree weather. Old shop was warm. Moved it to new shop and just dropped everything. New shop was cold. Went in and got the mill all together on Wed and Thurs. Warmed up to 60 degrees this week. Went in on friday and all my machines were covered in rust and wet. Great. So went in and cleaned them all today and got the power hooked up to the mill. Mill would power up but the computer wouldn't. Check and the power supply looks dead (please god only be the power supply). OK will get the lathe set up. Get it wired and it runs for a second and is super loud and trips the breaker. Freaking great...
I am assuming the lathe has condensation issues in the contactor was making the noise. Does this sound right? What should I do about it? Get a dehumidifier?
Hopefully the mill will work once I replace the power supply. If I have to do a new computer I am going to cry.
Anybody have this happen to them with the condesation?
-Keith
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Re: Moved shop and... crap
Are the shop voltages the same? Condensation shouldn't affect a contactor. If there were a lot of dirt on the contactor, it might be possible to create a voltage path from phase to phase if it was wet enough, but that's the only thing I can think of there.
Jim Dawson
Sandy, Oregon, USA
Re: Moved shop and... crap
Yeah the voltages are the same. Yeah I am kinda at a loss. I might have to take it more apart and look to make sure there isn't rust on the gears and causing resistance or something. It is WAY louder so I don't think that is it...
Re: Moved shop and... crap
Condensation can do some weird things. Are you sure both legs of your 220 volt circuit are good? I had some trouble here at my shop yesterday. A bunch of stuff was off line. Voltage was normal. When I put a load on the circuit though it was 120v on one side and zero on the other. In my case it was a loose splice in the power line.
For condensation control you can get a dehumidifier. A second and cheaper option it to run a few box fans. They will greatly reduce condensation. I live in a very humid place and that is what I do. Maybe run a fan for a day or two then try again. Wire up a light bulb in the control cabinet and get some heat in there. Since you just moved your machines I would have a really good look in the control cabinets and see if some wiring got loosened in the trip. give all the wires a firm tug to see if any are loose.
Re: Moved shop and... crap
I had a similar issue with the power and it turned out that my issue was with a weak circuit breaker. It appeared to be throwing power to both lines, but one side wasn't actually making contact.
I have totally closed up my shop now and no longer have machines that are exposed to exterior. Before though, I could see that condensation certainly could play a role in electrical failures. You may want to get a couple of drop lights and install infrared heat bulbs in them. They will heat up surfaces and warm a large area or machine pretty quickly to help eliminate condensation rather fast. Inside motors and stuff that you cannot see too.
Lee
Re: Moved shop and... crap
Put a decent load on it before you measure the voltage. Mine read normal with no load and it dropped to zero with a heater plugged in. In my case the relay was chattering.
Re: Moved shop and... crap
I had loads of water inside one of my servo's and that tripped my earth faulth protection. Can you see what tripped it if it was overload or earth fault? Also checking voltage drop during load and when powering on/off big loads is a smart thing to do. Before I got the power company to install a bigger line to my place I had 30 Volt drop when putting on a 4kW load on a 22kW intake.. That's crazy much but it was t hat bad and had prolly been for long without anyone documenting it. Now it's just a couple of volts after they fixed it.
Re: Moved shop and... crap
Well I got a new computer and went to work on it before installing it and it wouldn't start up. The switch is bad... Tried to boot up the old computer and it wouldn't so something bad happened to it anyway. So I upgraded everything at this point. Now just have to get a 1080p screenset...
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