Porter Cable 75182 Router on 110V site transformer.

Hello there.

I bought a pair of Porter Cable 75182 routers from ebay a while ago for my cnc machine, they are rated at 15 amps at 120V so 1800W, ive got one mounted on my machine and it seemed to run fine for 3-4 small jobs then just stopped working.

It was run via a relay in my control box that provides 230v to a 110v site transformer that is then connected directly to the router. The site transformer says 3300VA on it but it turns out its only rated for 1/4 duty cycle, not for continuos use. Its now short circuit so that site transformer is dead, it didnt get hot from what i noticed, and the current breaker did not pop out, im now left wondering if this is a bad idea and i should just abandon the porter cable and go back to my old router. Is it just that it drew too much current and if i get a larger site transformer it will be fine? Or am i missing something? I cant really see why the breaker did not go...

Many thanks

James

Maybe you could put the relay on the secondary side of the transformer so you are not energising the core each time.

Yeah i thought that could be the problem, the relay is only rated at 10 amps so thats why i switched it before the transformer. I could use it without the relay though. Im thinking i might change to a spindle and sell the porter cable routers, as i would have to buy a new higher power transformer to get the router running again, im a bit undecided..

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Originally Posted by James123

Yeah i thought that could be the problem, the relay is only rated at 10 amps so thats why i switched it before the transformer. I could use it without the relay though. Im thinking i might change to a spindle and sell the porter cable routers, as i would have to buy a new higher power transformer to get the router running again, im a bit undecided..

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Sell and buy new spindle, that sounds best to me. Most, I think, on the forum go for the 2.2kW water cooled + vfd

I think thats what im going to do, Is there any other advantages with going for a water cooled spindle other than noise? Ive been looking at these 3kw air cooled spindles on ebay, there quite cheep and the feedback they have on there previous sales is good, they say there in the UK too so no long wait and customs charges. They do a 2.2Kw water cooled spindle for less money but a radiator, hoses, water tank etc. seems like more work to me.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2507241507...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Thanks

James

The craik is that water cooled will run all day cool, whereas air cooled get hot. My spindle is an Elte air cooled and it's designed for constant running but the spindle alone cost three times the one you linked to, so I don't know about that one.

Turned out both the router and site transformer are working fine, i think there may of been a resettable thermal fuse in the transformer, ive bought a 2.2Kw water cooled spindle and VFD as they are quite cheep on ebay at the moment, £178 delivered from the UK, ive not got it going yet ive, just ordered some shielded 4 core cable. Cheers for your help EddyCurrent.