Residential Set-up for Heidelberg

I am planning on purchasing a Heidelberg 10x15 Windmill [Red Ball], and would like to put it in the garage attached to my house. The only problem is powering the three phase motor, as only single phase is available in residential areas. Does anyone have any suggestions for converters? Or any recommendations for a set-up like this? Thanks!

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Go on the Internet and look for a static or rotary phase convertor. A static convertor (providing roughly 2/3rds the rated motor power) will be enough to keep a Windmill happy. A rotary convertor (much more expensive) will provide 100% rated power, but will consume some energy on it’s own (it has a built in motor for phase conversion). An alternative would be to get/build a variable frequency drive (sort of a souped up static convertor) but they aren’t cheap and probably aren’t necessary for a fixed motor speed machine like the Windmill.

I use a static convertor (Phase a Matic) on my machine and have had no problems EXCEPT when I left the speed up too high, which created too much of a motor load for the static convertor to start again (much buzzing before I turned it off—no damage to the convertor either).

You will need a 20 amp 220V circuit to support a Windmill. One thing you can do with the phase convertor is run other machines off of one convertor (so long as the total power demands of the machines do not exceed that of the convertor).

A much easier way is to simply replace the 3 phase motor with a single phase motor. Remove the pulley from your motor so that you can measure the shaft diameter. Go to any motor supply company such as W.W. Grainger and select a 1.5 horsepower, 1735 RPM (approx), 220 volt, single phase motor which has the same shaft diameter and turns clockwise facing the shaft (or can be wired to run in either direction). The motor mount on a windmill is almost infinitely adjustable to accomodate any motor bolt pattern. Assuming that you are getting the motor controller ( starter box ) with the press and the original 3 phase motor is 208 volt and not 450 volt, you can use the same electrical configuration. The only difference is you will be using only 2 of the 3 poles on the line and load side of the contactor. Make sure you use the 2 poles that are internally connected to the coil.

Thank you so much for your help! I will look into both!