[squale]

I am looking to set up a small machine shop in my house, I need to get a phase 1 to phase 3 convertor, about how much should I be expecting to pay for one?

Thanks

[Caprirs]

The cost depends a lot on the horsepower of your machine. Ebay has lots of phase converters for sale. You need a realistic approximation of the true power draw of the machine including spindle, coolant pumps, and hydraulic pumps. So you might have a 5hp spindle but there's a 1hp coolant pump in the base and a hydraulic pump that uses 1hp. If you go too small on the converter, whenever you turn the coolant pump on, you can trip a circuit breaker.

Generally, the rotary phase converters are better than the static phase converts. Obviously, the rotary converters are also more expensive. Both my VMCs are running on rotary converters.

[squale]

so lets assume you need about an 8hp convertor... what should that run you? I'm just trying to get a simple idea here so I know if this could even be doable for me.. otherwise I might have to look into 220v machines instead..

[erd39030]

I bought a 15 HP rotary phase converter for $900.

For CNC it has to be rotary, because it really delivers the third phase. The static converter uses capacitors to "fools" the electric equipment to think they have 3 phases.
The static converters work fine only with conventional non CNC machines.

Also, your converter capacity must be at least double of your machine requirement, if you have a 5 hp machine, then you have to buy the converter with 10 HP. That is because in CNC you normally do tasks that take a lot of power for short periods, like suddenly inverting spindle rotation for tapping, and full axis acellerations.

[Alex2005]

Have you considered talking to the power company and getting 3 phase brought into the property, short of that get a GX390 with a 3 phase generator, should be good for 7-8 KW and portable, sort of.

[Al_The_Man]

There has been past articles here about building your own & tuning etc, I built a 7.5hp rpc for $200.00, often 220v 3ph motors can be had cheap due to lower demand.
Al.

[Caprirs]

Actual cost can vary. Ebay lists several 10hp converters for $500. However, some do require an external switch to power them up. Others have the switch integral to the converter.

[modernprecision]

I would recommend American Rotary phase converters. It's the Gentec and Baldor company. Here is the link.
http://cgi.ebay.com/7-5HP-CNC-ROTARY...QQcmdZViewItem
We bought one for our Hurco CNC, worked great. Easy to install, excellent packing, great bang for the back, excellent customer service, fairly quiet (more quiet than Phase o matic), pretty stout, etc. I can go on but you get the idea. One thing I feel it lacks or should improve on is a finer net/shield to protect the phase converter. Although I did read it had sealed bearings and capacitors. Hope this helped. I also received a couple positive reviews on the AR phase converters.