60Hz power to supply 50Hz equipment

[jholc]

I have 480V 60Hz power to supply to a 50Hz ceramic heating unit that is used to preheat steel for welding repairs in a mining equipment repair situation. Will this work and what variables will i encounter? Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[John120/240]

I would contact your vendor that sold you this equipment. He would be the one who is most familiar with this equipment, its requirements & limitations.

 

[Jraef]

If there are contactors inside, and the coils are AC coils rated for 50hz only, they will not last long. But often on stuff like this, they will use 24VDC control inside, so it doesn't matter. Modern power supplies don't care about frequency any more, and resistive heater elements never did.

The only possible gotcha might be if it has SCR controllers for the heaters. They have to time the firing of the SCRs, and may be sensitive to frequency. Those that are however often have a DIP switch or jumper that you set to change from 50-60Hz.

RTFM...

 

[GoldDigger]

If there are contactors inside, and the coils are AC coils rated for 50hz only, they will not last long.

I am curious why this will be the case.
They will draw less current, and I might worry about whether they would pull in and hold at the same nominal voltages at 50Hz, but why would they be damaged? Excessive current in the pole shading windings?
Or are you saying that because of the reduced force the coils will OK but the contacts will suffer instead?

 

[Besoeker]

I am curious why this will be the case.
They will draw less current, and I might worry about whether they would pull in and hold at the same nominal voltages at 50Hz, but why would they be damaged? Excessive current in the pole shading windings?
Or are you saying that because of the reduced force the coils will OK but the contacts will suffer instead?

I'm with you on that.
The concern would be not pulling in.

 

[winnie]

I second contacting the manufacturer.

They still exist and still make this equipment, and could tell you exactly what was changed to operate at 50Hz.

They are a US company and it looks like 50Hz operation was a modification, so it is very likely that most of what they used was 60Hz capable.

http://www.hotfoilehs.com
http://www.hotfoilehs.com/images/hotfoil/PDFs/PowerConsoleSTAND-UP.pdf
-Jon

 

[Jraef]

I am curious why this will be the case.
They will draw less current, and I might worry about whether they would pull in and hold at the same nominal voltages at 50Hz, but why would they be damaged? Excessive current in the pole shading windings?
Or are you saying that because of the reduced force the coils will OK but the contacts will suffer instead?

I'm with you on that.
The concern would be not pulling in.

I know that it's not SUPPOSED to be that way, but 5 years working for Klockner Moeller and 3 years working for Siemens exposed me to a LOT of contactors with 50Hz coils sent here to the US and used on 60Hz, where the coils burned out within 6 months of arrival. Was it that they were too weak because of the change in inductance? I can't say, seems odd that it would be so closely sized that less than 10% total difference would have that effect. But I saw what I saw.

 

[Besoeker]

I know that it's not SUPPOSED to be that way, but 5 years working for Klockner Moeller and 3 years working for Siemens exposed me to a LOT of contactors with 50Hz coils sent here to the US and used on 60Hz, where the coils burned out within 6 months of arrival. Was it that they were too weak because of the change in inductance? I can't say, seems odd that it would be so closely sized that less than 10% total difference would have that effect. But I saw what I saw.

It's 20%.

 

[GoldDigger]

I know that it's not SUPPOSED to be that way, but 5 years working for Klockner Moeller and 3 years working for Siemens exposed me to a LOT of contactors with 50Hz coils sent here to the US and used on 60Hz, where the coils burned out within 6 months of arrival. Was it that they were too weak because of the change in inductance? I can't say, seems odd that it would be so closely sized that less than 10% total difference would have that effect. But I saw what I saw.

Were they also specified for 220V instead of 240V (which is a 10% difference )

 

[Jraef]

Were they also specified for 220V instead of 240V (which is a 10% difference )

Details like that have faded into the background noise in my head, or been assigned to brain cells long ago killed by beer...

I got into it in detail once at the behest of management, a long time ago (I think Regan was in office, maybe Carter...) when I was still fresh out of college and things like that were still interesting to me. There was I think an issue with not only the inductance, but also the difference in wire resistance and magnetic saturation that would take place on a coil designed to be optimized for 50Hz and given 60Hz, which accounted for the difference in pull-in strength netting out to be around 10-11% less IIRC. But again, the details elude me. We actually made decent money taking in European machinery and rebuilding the controls after the coils fried, so nobody was too keenly interested in actually SOLVING the problem, i.e. telling people to buy 240V 50Hz coils or something. My boss just wanted me to look into it and do a write up for marketing purposes. He wanted a sound bite that said "Because of this, you need to send us your machines to have the control panels rebuilt." When I got into using words like inductance and magnetic saturation, it lost its appeal for that.

 

[spark master]

European voltages, with a NJ name plate.

Where I used to work, we had a lot of European equipment. Never had a problem feeding them 208 3 phase, 60hz.