magnetic chuck control

have an Electro-Matic magnetic chuck control that I plan to sell. It is rated at 115 volts AC in and 115 volts DC out at 50 watts 50-60 HZ. It's like new and I'm going to try Craigslist first and if no results, then eBay. Do any of you guys have an idea what my asking price should be?

Engineman

Reply to
engineman
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It sounds like just a bridge rectifier, which can be had for well under $5. Cost to replicate with box, switch, line cord and suitable connector would probably be under $20.

Reply to
Don Foreman

Also a capacitor to minimize ripple, and a resistor to limit turn-on surge. A DPDTCO switch does the job of selecting between AC and CD output, as well as turing it off.

This is exactly what is in the base of the small surface grinder which I have -- and it had an even simpler circuit before I "improved" it. It had not a bridge, but a single Selenium rectifier, and a SPDTCO switch. The original capacitor was marked 8 uF, and actually *measured* something like 0.001 uF or less. I replaced it with about a 200 uF cap, which is total overkill, but is what I had on hand in the proper voltage range.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Since the spec is 115 VAC in, 115 VDC out, there can't be much of a ripple-reduction capacitor, if any. A cap charges to the peak voltage of 163 volts each half-cycle, decays according to the cap size and load current but the avg DC voltage will always be > 115VDC because (neglecting diode drops) the avg DC voltage is 115 with no cap at all. A substantially inductive load like a magnetic chuck wouldn't have much current ripple anyway. There's also no turn on surge; dI/dt is limited by the inductance of the load and steady state current is determined by the load's resistance.

Reply to
Don Foreman

Glad you got the Selenium rectifier out of there - when it fails, a poisonous gas is released! Rather nasty in the small shop. The 8uf cap was an electrolytic type and dryed out - becoming an insulator almost.

Mart> >> >>

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

Very, very dangerous these things.....losing hold power on a magnetic chuck when in use can be very exciting indeed. I am afraid that if I really needed to use one of these things, the circuit would be anything but simple. I would absolutely make certain there would be enough hold time to get the wheel off the work in an emergency. Steve

Reply to
Steve Lusardi

Just curious, there's also a spring loaded "reverse" switch to de magnetise on these chucks. Are they just switching the + and - leads in there?

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

It's probably more elaborate than that. Electro-matic makes these chuck controllers.

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In the dim past, they made the "Neutrofier" electromechanical chuck controllers, which were crazy electromechanical clockwork affairs. I've helped a customer repair the Neutrofier on their Blanchard grinder a couple times. I wish I had taken a photo of it; I can't find one online.

Reply to
Ned Simmons

See patent numbers:

2229104 3401313
Reply to
Ned Simmons

My guess is that it applies AC thru a PTC thermistor to apply a diminishing AC current.

Reply to
Don Foreman

i have a neutrofier control and if any one is interested, I can take a lot of pictures.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus4212

I have a Netrofier control on one of my bigger surface grinders. You can adjust the dc voltage to the magnet to regulate the amount of holding power to the piece. When you are ready to take the piece off you release it with the control applying ac voltage to the chuck in diminishing pulses of about one second duration. The process takes about 10 seconds. I think I have the manual on the unit in my files. Blanchard grinders use them a lot.

Walker also makes magnetic holding equipment. They are nice units. I have replaced several of the old tube type controls with them and they work flawlessly.

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I think the last one I did was for a 8x 24 inch magnet and the price was about 450.00. They are just a two wire and ground hookup to the magnet and plug into 110 volt outlet. To order you supply the model or size of the magnet and they will supply the right control.

John

Reply to
john

The mechanical Neutrofier I worked on has a big rotary switch that sequences a number of polarity reversals and voltage reductions of the DC magnet supply. As far as I know the magnet never sees AC.

Thanks, I'll try to remember that if the Neutrofier becomes uneconomical to repair. The last time they called me the problem was in the commutator under the chuck, not the controller.

Reply to
Ned Simmons

If the price is right and it happens to match my customer's chuck, they might be interested. My recollection is that the magnet is 240VDC at around 3A. It's on a 30" or 36" Blanchard grinder. Is it a mechanical unit or one of the more modern replacements?

Reply to
Ned Simmons

Ned, you can email me at ichudov AT algebra DOT com if you have any questions.

Igor

Reply to
Ignoramus4212

...

that's the trouble with asking a EE a question. You don't understand the answer

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

If I remember right they use a magnetic amplifier type system to regulate the AC voltage going to the magnet. Its been a number of years ago ant to my recollection the transformer was bad on the one I was fixing. I just rewound the transformer and put it back in service.

I learned winding transformers when I was a kid building high power ham transmitters. The old Dumont TV transformers were great for getting

1500 vdc for a pair of 811's.

John

Reply to
john

I took some photos of the device. Can anyone tell from these whether the switch feeds in AC or reverses the polarity to demagnatize? Don, it is a little more elaborate than you speculated, it has a choke coil also. The cap is .001MFD

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Eng> Karl Townsend wrote:

Reply to
engineman

engineman fired this volley in news:ceb8d5a7-88fa- snipped-for-privacy@k2g2000pro.googlegroups.com:

You can't "reverse the polarity to demagnatize" an electromagnet. If current is flowing, it's magnetized. If it happens to be wound for AC, it will be constantly reversing polarity at 60Hz, anyway. If it's wound for DC, reversing the direction of current flow merely reverses the magnetic poles.

OTOH, as suggested, if the chuck were wound for AC, and the power supply were set up to supply a rapidly diminishing AC voltage to the magnet, it would eventually settle down to nearly zero flux.

This is necessary, because suddenly breaking the current can leave the poles magnetized even after current is stopped.

Your power supply apparently has two selenium rectifiers (of old). That would suggest a full-wave-center-tapped DC configuration. But I don't really see that ferro-magnetic thingy as a regular transformer. It looks more like a center-tapped choke or an autoformer. The choke would be to take out the "buzz" of AC, and make the chuck run more quietly. There is a small cap on the control board. It might be there to suppress switch arcing, or it could be used as a fly-back to suppress quick-break magnetization of the chuck, or it could be a little bit of filtering to take out more buzz.

The label sez... 115DC out 115AC in. So there's not much voltage "transforming" going on in the choke/autoformer/transformer.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

the selenium rectifiers look like they are hooked up as a full wave center tapped rectifier system, but the wires on the secondary also go out to the switch. I would imagine they are just using the ac to feed the magnet while you remove the part from the magnet rather than on other control units that actually demagnetize the part and magnet

John

Reply to
John

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