My equipment and work in process

MtuEngineer · August 12, 2006, 03:41:38 PM

Hello folks,

Below are a few photos I took today of my mill, along with the planer we will be using in the future (months, years, decades?)

The saw itself. 6000 hours or so, decently maintained. Had to replace the potentiometer along with the control board when we got it. We are mostly cutting hard maple and white ash at the moment. We have 50 acres or so of cedar that we are debating cutting some as well. Still working on getting some sawlogs in to really feed this baby! All logs for the most part are moved by hand into position, good young back and all, thank god for the cant hook, peavey, and pick!

The frame for the planer. I didnt think to get any photos before it was disassembled. No identifications on it that we can find. All cast iron, including scroll work and good casting. Weighs more then an elephant pot roast.

Various bits and pieces, most of it will be scrapped we think. The babbit bearing surfaces will be kept and lovingly maintained. The gearing is a bit archaic and will be replaced. Also a 30Hp motor.

My first stack! Random sizes, widths, lengths and tapers! A definite learning experience there. But oh so enjoyable. Covered in Tyvek since it is cheaper then a tarp which will just tear anyhow. Tyvek is tough!

Second stack, hard maple, mostly 1X6. Some larger widths as well. This is my more refined pile, keeping it seperate from the rest. Unfortunately that was the last of my sawlogs near the mill, the rest are below the hill.

Quality Control Inspector. Sleeps alot, doesn't do much inspecting, and is cross eyed! But too cute to fire him. (His name is Cassius Clay, AKA "Little Man")

Norwiscutter · August 12, 2006, 04:16:37 PM

Nice post and welcome to the Forum. Looks like you have some fun projects going.

beenthere · August 12, 2006, 04:35:27 PM

MTu
Welcome.
I'll bet those are nice photo's but reduced too much for seeing much, but hate to complain ;D

You get to make 'em 400 pixels in widest dimension. THEN save them to the 30K file size (not the other way around). It will be worth it, you betcha.

Hope you have more.

pasbuild · August 12, 2006, 11:02:22 PM

Welcome ta da forum neighbor

getoverit · August 12, 2006, 11:05:25 PM

Wel;come to the forum MtuEngineer!

Looks like ya got some fine equipment to get going with. Keep us posted on the progress.

Kelvin · August 13, 2006, 03:12:17 PM

Howdy!
LOoks good. Have you had the saw for long? Just a hobby? I'm just north of Lansing, and have a lt-40 i bought new a few years ago. You can look at our website at Ravenfarm.com to see some picks of what we are up to. Building our own timberframe house at the moment. welcome to the forum, and if you're ever down this way stop by. How much did that outfit set you back? I just got a upgrade on our tiawanese 20" planer to a powermatic 20" with byrd head that we don't have power for yet as i need a converter still. Have fun.

Kelvin

dewwood · August 13, 2006, 08:11:01 PM

Welcome to the forum!

Looks like you have a nice setup. Better watch those trees on your property or there won't be any left before long. I have a son at MTU in the forestry department.

MtuEngineer · August 14, 2006, 07:55:25 AM

We've had the saw for about a month and a half now, I've been swamped at work so I havent been able to run it as much as I'd like, that and finding a variety of sawlogs without cutting my land any further is getting difficult. Time to talk to the loggers! Ive got a papermill 30 miles south, and another paper mill and plywood factory 30 miles north, max they can accept is 28", so I'm thinking of trying that route. For the moment it is just a hobby, finish up the hunting camp, and a few projects around the house. I'd like to make a living out of it but I'm still trying to find the "niche". I've put some thought into marine applications, but still exploring it. Theres alot of sawmills around here doing the same ole thing, so I want to stick out from the crowd. We picked up the mill for 11,500 I think. What type of converter are you looking at Kelvin? Rotary type of a variable frequency drive? I work with that sort of stuff quite often at work and just recently installed a rotary converter at the old mans shop.

Thanks for the welcome dewwood! I miss houghton quite a bit, a beautiful place and a wonderful school. For his degree hes in the best part of the world to learn it. Tell him to enjoy a breakfast at the Suomi for me. We dont plan on cutting much more of the high lands... though there is a giant hemlock I have my eyes on... The swamp is another matter, weve got 50 or 60 acres of cedar swamp and we've guesstimated at about 50,000 board foot without making a huge impact on the land. The problem is finding a piece cutter these days. Weve always called our cedar "white cedar", any know the exact name for what we are seeing? I've heard it called eastern white cedar as well but not quite sure. Thanks for the warm welcome folks!

Casey

Also, is it okay to post links to websites? I made up a website for higher resolution pictures so those who have the connection can view them (or those who want to drink a cup of coffee and wait!)

Kelvin · August 14, 2006, 07:05:14 PM

Yeah finding that niche is what i'm trying to do as well!
I'm trying to make a rotary phase converter. I went to the scrap yard and found a real nice looking 15hp 220v/440 motor. Sometimes people throw things away for weird reasons especially here next to GM. i'll have to figure out how to test it. It spins real nice and looks real new. I also don't know how to tell if its 220 or 440 right now either. What i figured i'd do was buy what they call a converter panel from ebay for $250 that has everything you need to make the converter in one box and you just wire up your motor. Otherwise i was just gonna make a rope pull for the motor and flip it on when i spun it, or a jack motor on a loose belt. What do you think?
Thanks
Kelvin

MtuEngineer · August 14, 2006, 09:52:05 PM

First thing I'd look for on the motor to determine the voltage is by checking inside the junction box on the side of the motor. Alot of the times, even on really old motors, the wiring diagram will be cast, or a tag will be present. If that doesn't work you could do some googling for the make and model of the motor and someone may have a diagram for it. I'd have to dig out some of my texts and check on a method to test it, I usually deal with brand new motors so theres usually no doubt. Chances are the kit you see on ebay isn't a true rotary converter. It actually creates a false leg to start the motor. Without getting into the theory of it you "trick" the three phase motor into thinking it has a third leg on it. If I recall correctly it is quite inefficient. The 15Hp might only give you 7.5 to 10 on the good side. The technology may have changed since the last time I looked at it but it will be a brute force method. My personal preference is a variable frequency drive. It is completely solid state (no moving parts) and you can run up to a 7.5Hp 3 phase motor off of one and have single phase for an input. Any larger then that on a VFD and your into a totally different class (much more expensive). I think we paid about 400 bucks for our VFD's, but we purchased them in lots of 5. A one off VFD will probably run you $800 bucks or so. Another nice thing is the VFD will always protect itself first, and then the motor. It can sense motor load temperature and amperage among a ton of other things. In my time designing those systems we never had a single fuse blown due to the VFD, it will trip first. One other thing to consider with a phase converter is the quality of the frequency that the generator will make. If your input frequency varies, or is of poor quality it can translate onto the piece you are planing in the form of vibrations. The VFD has selectable output frequency so that any harmonics won't appear. The VFD takes the single phase input, and converts it into a high frequency DC which simulates true 3 phase. It switches the DC fast enough so that to the motor it is indistinguishable from AC. Hope it helped, and didn't confuse

Casey

UNCLEBUCK · August 15, 2006, 02:01:53 AM

Welcome Mtu ! my neighbor sneaks off up north and gets cedar out from some swamp and he calls his stash minnesota white cedar , not sure why he adds the minnesota to it as it looks like white cedar and I couldnt tell if it was your cedar or not . Enjoy your toys and make sure you check out Kelvins projects someday as it sounds like you guys are close to each others location .

submarinesailor · August 16, 2006, 05:57:05 PM

MTU,

Love VFD/VSDs. Used them a lot on big building HVAC systems. The ones I worked the most were for 600 HP chilled water pumps at the Pentagon Heating and Refrigeration plant. They had 480 VAC 3 ph input and outputs. I wonder if a motor RPM input into the control loop could be used to keep the motor speed up, keeping the blade speed up. Never used one with single phase input and a 3 phase output. I see how it can been done, just never used/seen it.

Bruce

MtuEngineer · August 16, 2006, 09:33:26 PM

Doing what you say Bruce is really the core of the VFD, it can allow one variable, being the load, to vary while maintaining the speed. The VFDs I have worked with allow for 150% of max amps for 60 seconds. So if your 7.5 hp motor draws 20 amps at 1800 RPM, you can maintain 30 amps at 1800 for up to 60 seconds. Once this point is reached most units are programmable to either become load dependent, where they will keep the motor spinning but make moves to reduce the amperage, or will "trip" out. It is even possible to set it to maintain an amperage and vary the speed, not to mention hundreds of other options, skip zones, alarms, and such.

I would have liked to have seen that 600 Hp VFD, I've only seen pictures of ones those sized and it is mind boggling. The biggest I've worked with are 7.5Hp, which are the size of a 6 pack of beer. If I had an electric WM and a handy VFD to match the size I would definitely put it on and play with it. When I designed custard machines we were the first in the industry to use a VFD and it really opened alot of doors for us. An engineers dreamworld

Casey

submarinesailor · August 17, 2006, 06:23:01 PM

I have also wondered about varying the frequency, thus the motor and blade speed to match the type of wood being cut.

Questions to the experts; Do you use the same blade speed, feet per second for hard woods and softwood. Faster for hard and slower for soft or the complete reverse. Could changing the blade speed improve the rate and/or quality of the cut? Changing blade speeds with a VFD would be very easy.

Bruce

urbanlumberinc · August 17, 2006, 10:15:57 PM

Always good to meet another devotee of Tyvek

MtuEngineer · August 17, 2006, 10:21:12 PM

Thinking of speeds and feeds Bruce reminds me of a book I browsed through at the library about sawmill operation. The book focused on really really big mills, such as how and where to place the docks so the cargo ships could load etc. One thing I found of interest was speed and feed rates for the planers. I know if your milling steel the rpm and feed rate is different then aluminum, and the same with wood. They had some tables listing how many blades to contact the wood per second per inch, so a person could easily adapt this using the VFD. It's actually part of our long term plan with our planer. Select the wood type, and the feeds and speeds are variable to whatever your looking for.

And yes, Tyvek rocks, be nice when they can perfect the joining methods and start making other things out of it.

Casey