News from Westin Drives

By Fraser Lynch, Technical Manager
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Our engineers came up with an innovative solution when they were presented with a paint-stirring machine that could run at only one speed.

The machine's owners needed to diversify their paint offering, but the bespoke, single-phase agitator was not up to the job. A cost-effective way was required to upgrade the unit to run at variable speeds to reduce over-agitation of certain paints and to increase it for others.

​Electrical engineer Adam Daffern, supported by our workshop manager Steve Ormondroyd, proposed an engineering solution, pictured above.

As single-phase motors have limited and expensive vsd controls, a progressive output three-phase motor and single to three-phase IP66 inverter from Invertek was offered. The existing gearbox was retained as it was perfectly serviceable. 

The customer was delighted with this neat and effective solution and was able to adapt to present and future requirements with only 24 hours of down time. 

By Steve Ormondroyd, Workshop Manager

This is the curious story of how we repaired an electric motor that ran on water. The motor, top left, from which water is pouring, was located in a pit under a machine in a dye house and hadn’t run for years. 

The customer wanted to start using the machine again, so the motor was switched on and ran for around half an hour. The stop button was only pressed when someone reported water splashing out of the terminal box.

It turns out the motor had been flooded at some stage and nobody had noticed. How the windings didn’t blow amazed me.

When tested, the windings were in excellent condition, passing all our electrical tests as if the motor had just come out of the factory. We also balanced the rotor, fitted new bearings and ran a final test before giving the motor a fresh coat of paint and returning it to the customer.