Posts: 4,802
Threads: 1
Joined: Jan 2004
Location: Eugene, OR
Follow up from my other thread. My Minimax MM16 starter switch has a component wired into it. I forgot to take a photo. Little black insert that fits perfectly inside the switch cover, has print on it says something about low voltage thresholds (something like that), has two wires that thread out through the cover and go switch terminals. My new switch did not come with this... thing, so I had to transplant it.
What is it?
Thanks.
Best,
Aram, always learning
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Web:
My woodworking photo site
Posts: 23,922
Threads: 2
Joined: Sep 2003
Location: Missouri
No idea. Never had the cover off of mine.
Steve
Mo.
I miss the days of using my dinghy with a girlfriend too. Zack Butler-4/18/24
The Revos apparently are designed to clamp railroad ties and pull together horrifically prepared joints
WaterlooMark 02/9/2020
Posts: 12,666
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2010
Location: Lewiston, NY
(02-14-2020, 12:18 AM)Aram Wrote: Follow up from my other thread. My Minimax MM16 starter switch has a component wired into it. I forgot to take a photo. Little black insert that fits perfectly inside the switch cover, has print on it says something about low voltage thresholds (something like that), has two wires that thread out through the cover and go switch terminals. My new switch did not come with this... thing, so I had to transplant it.
What is it?
Thanks.
Could be a low voltage detector, for lack of the correct term. If the voltage drops too low it trips so your motor doesn't get damaged.
John
Posts: 4,802
Threads: 1
Joined: Jan 2004
Location: Eugene, OR
(02-14-2020, 12:38 PM)jteneyck Wrote: Could be a low voltage detector, for lack of the correct term. If the voltage drops too low it trips so your motor doesn't get damaged.
John
Thanks. That seems to line up with what I remember the label saying.
Best,
Aram, always learning
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Web:
My woodworking photo site
Posts: 16,604
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2002
Location: Ra-cha-cha, NY
(02-14-2020, 12:38 PM)jteneyck Wrote: Could be a low voltage detector, for lack of the correct term. If the voltage drops too low it trips so your motor doesn't get damaged.
John
What he wrote sounds most logical. Some controls also have overvoltage protection, as well as loss of phase (three-phase), but that's stuff that has to be specified when ordering a motor control.
Tom
“This place smells like that odd combination of flop sweat, hopelessness, aaaand feet"
Posts: 545
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: Harper, Kansas
Does your machine have micro switches on a lid, a door etc that when opened it will shut the machine down? Those switches will be low voltage and a link to the contactor on the starter.
It's not always the quiet ones who don't have much to say.
Posts: 4,802
Threads: 1
Joined: Jan 2004
Location: Eugene, OR
(02-16-2020, 01:44 PM)The Tinman Wrote: Does your machine have micro switches on a lid, a door etc that when opened it will shut the machine down? Those switches will be low voltage and a link to the contactor on the starter.
It does. I'm not sure I follow this. The interlocks (2 doors, 1 brake) provide a 0 ohm short to enable the motor to run. Can you elaborate about the low voltage?
Thanks.
Best,
Aram, always learning
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Web:
My woodworking photo site
Posts: 545
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: Harper, Kansas
Without seeing your machine and it's starter I can't say for sure, but the 2 wires are a low volt circuit that completes the power to the contactor solenoid. @12 volts will go out to the switches wired in series on one of the wires and then back to the starter. If all the switches are in a closed position it will allow the contactor to energize.
It's not always the quiet ones who don't have much to say.