Sewing machine motors

[Stepside]

I was looking at E'Bay the other night. There a lot of commercial sewing machine motors. Some are 3/4 HP There are several styles of "clutches" as well as variable speed and even reverse. Some are used some are new. quite a few of them are in the $100.00 range.

How would they work on a small lathe or drill press or?

[Mike Amick]

You gave a pretty long list there ... hate to paint that broad of a brush and say .. "they work good"

But will say ... lots of DC motor guys on here, quite happy.

[imp]

3/4 HP on a sewing machine? Wow. Got me to thinking: every sewing machine I've seen had pretty small motors, likely Series-Wound "Universal" motors, in most cases, you could see and sometimes smell the sparking brushes. Those types lend themselves to easy control of speed, like a Lionel Toy Train used to do.

Two more imponderables just struck me: How did Lionel make the horn or whistle blow? And, how much HP does a starter generate cranking a Chevy small-block? Could approximate, say, 300 amps. at 12 volts, 3600 watts, a little over 2 horsepower! Not kidding. Todays starters are hardly much bigger than my salt shaker......imp

[danlb]

The commercial sewing machines use about 3/4 HP, sometimes more. Some use a clutch, some are DC and some are BLDC.

I bought the CONSEW brand CS1000. It's a 500 watt brushless DC with controller running off 110v. 0 to 5000 RPM. It's basically a 3/4 HP multi phase motor with dedicated VFD.

I plan to put it on my 9x20 lathe eventually. I've tested it and it runs quite smoothly. I need to fabricate a bracket for the motor and an adapter for the pulley. Never enough time now that I'm retired, so it sits in the box that it came in.


Dan

[Stepside]

Okay

They are for commercial/production sewing machines. My question really has to do with if they would stand up to the rigors of powering a 9 inch lathe. The vary speed would be nice if the power did not diminish too much.

[Black_Moons]

Two more imponderables just struck me: How did Lionel make the horn or whistle blow? And, how much HP does a starter generate cranking a Chevy small-block? Could approximate, say, 300 amps. at 12 volts, 3600 watts, a little over 2 horsepower! Not kidding. Todays starters are hardly much bigger than my salt shaker......imp

Fun fact, those starters are series wound and will do incredible max RPM.. and maybe explode, without a load.

That said, they are also rated for '60~ seconds on, 15 minutes off duty' IIRC. :P

Gotta love people who crank their car for 5 minutes straight and wonder why the cables/starter/battery start to melt.

[CalM]

I have on the shelf a clutch type commercial sewing machine motor that I picked up with the thought that it would be IDEAL for second op and collet work. (Think "speed lathe")

Of course, I have yet to put it to use, though I do have the ideal machine to hang it under.

Hmm, maybe I should get to work on it! ;-)

ps Those clutches are incredibly robust, and stand a lot of slipping without undue wear and tear.

For a sewing machine, I would use the BLDC if I were in need of a replacement. So far, I cant fault the little universal motor on the old Singer for all my needs.

[ulav8r]

Commercial sewing machines are expected to run nearly continuously. The operators are usually paid by the piece and they do the same operation over and over with as little down time as possible. Home shop use will be light duty for them as long as they are not overloaded, just don't try to get 150% out of them.

[flylo]

I've posted before that I've used several ConSew 3/4 hp with great results. They are reversable, vari-speed have a brake & lots of torque. They have an outlet for a light & are DC.
Also machine lights are very expensive, sewing lights are cheap, also the commercial tables are great. I bought 4 commercial machines on mathing tables & sold one head to a rebuilding company who just wanted the head so I got full price, kept the motor & 2'x5' table with only a hole for the cord drilled in the table I have a bench lathe going on thatone

[daveo]

I have one on a 618, I took the one set of pulleys off of the machine when I did it. It runs direct drive off of the motor and lacks a bit of low end torque at slow speeds...

[PStechPaul]

Many of the commercial sewing machine motors are 1/2-3/4 HP three phase induction type, so they will need a small VFD. A four pole 200V motor could be driven with 480V at 120 Hz to get twice the power at 3600 RPM. The cheapest I found is this for $40:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brother-Sewing-Machine-Motors-HITACHI-/251758289966

You can also get washing machine motors that are three phase, such as the following 800 watt 16,000 RPM for $39:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/9N08-FROM-KENMORE-ELITE-42922-WASHING-MACHINE-DRIVE-MOTOR-195VAC-5A-3-PHASE-/141366268554

[flylo]

Here's the ones I use, plug & play! eBay item number:141900504599
Here's one cheaper with shipping eBay item number:151718672393

I've never paid over $100 shipped but I just wanted to show the style & specs I have used.

[boslab]

I read they were over rated to get the duty cycle up?
My corded electric drill is near enough 1hp, 750W so 3/4 hp doesn't seem too excessive
Mark

[RB211]

Two more imponderables just struck me: How did Lionel make the horn or whistle blow? And, how much HP does a starter generate cranking a Chevy small-block? Could approximate, say, 300 amps. at 12 volts, 3600 watts, a little over 2 horsepower! Not kidding. Todays starters are hardly much bigger than my salt shaker......imp

Lionel would have a second AC motor for the whistle, or a DC door ringer for the horn. It was activated by a DC coil. The whistle lever injected a DC voltage over the AC track voltage to turn it on. The horn ran off a D cell battery