Hadinge HLV-H Won't Stay Powered Up??

My new to me hardinge HLV-Hwon't stay on. I press the button to turn it on, and the little light comes, but then it immediately turns off. I think the contactor that "clicks" the machine on is not staying energized for some reason. Has anyone had this problem? The lathe is from the sixties (I think) and it was made in England. Also, it already has a transformer bolted to the side of it and the lathe worked fine for about 3 months, right up until the day I tried to turn it on for an actual job.... I'm working out of my garage so I don't have alot of money to throw at the problem.

Thanks,

W

Do you have utility-supplied three phase power in your garage?

Sometimes the coolant pump switch is in the "auto" position. If pump has not been run for a while, it can gum up.
This causes one of the overload heaters to kick out as the pump cannot rotate and eventually heats up.
Check for pump switch position to OFF
Push in on all the row of heaters in panel and perhaps you will hear one click for reset.
Good luck

My HLVH was losing power sometimes during use. Cause was the contactors inside the side electrical cabinet were loose. The little screws on them loosened up from years of vibrations and the wires lost contact. A screwdriver fixed it up in 5 minutes.

I don't have utility supplied power. I use a RPC to run the lathe and the Bridgeport. I'll check the pump motors and the screws that connect the contactors. Thanks.

Is your spindle lock pin pushed in?

Larry

The lathe is from the sixties (I think) and it was made in England.

Click to expand...

here's my 1966 hlv-h wiring diagram (UK) .

HLV-H 397 UK

My guess would be the voltage across the coil is insufficient (have you change the RPC's phase wiring at all?)

Another possibility, is the reverse switch - on the my UK wired machine, it will disconnect the main contactor if switched (as a safety measure, I guess) might be worth checking it's not halfway between forward and reverse.

Bill

The lathe has a control transformer. Be absolutely sure that the control circuitry is across the
utility lines, and NOT connected to the rotary converter's manufactured phase.

If the voltage sags a bit under application of load, it can cause the problem you observe.
The control voltage can drop low enough to drop out the contactors.

Check control voltage power as Jim details.
Check that M1 pulls in when pressing the start button.
Then try pressing the operating pin on M1 without pressing the start button, does the light come on? If yes, there is a problem with not having the proper (low) voltage to operate M1, or the coil has been run on low voltage, and the cores haven't seated together allowing the coil to overheat and distort so they can't close now.

I'll try these things tonight--thanks again.

W

Thanks for the wiring diagram Bill--it looks just like mine.

Wilhelm

I meant that the wiring diagram looks like it matches the wiring on my lathe (I didn't have a diagram before). Thanks!

Hi Billtodd,
My name it’s cesar and i am a owner of a hardinge hlv-h 1278 serial nr and i didin’t had any wiring diagram coming with the lathe , it’s 1963 the year of manufacturing so I was thinking it’s the same like yours, the top control box has the wires disconnected, I manage to label them, but in all the diagram I have, on does not have the nr 6, one does not have the nr 7, I really hope your diagram match my lathe.
Can I please have a copy of your diagram?

Thank you
Kind regards

Cesar

Hi Cesar,

No problem :-) pdf here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwXDcXKx2KzlQzJpM2J2TkgwMzA

Bill

I thought I'd post here as I recently solved this same problem.

As part of the first bring-up of my buddy's 1960-ish-built UK HLV-H, it was refusing to stay on after I released the green "ON" button.

Working from Bill Todd's wiring diagrams, I was able to confirm that the NC contacts on two of the three overload breakers were not making contact (OL1 was working, OL2 and OL3 were not). I removed them, took them all apart and cleaned up the NC contacts (they had visible carbon arcing marks), and reinstalled them with a bit of dielectric grease on the (internal) contacts. I have to note that these contacts are rather poorly designed, and look and work a lot worse than your average relay with its contact buttons. I've attached an image of the underside of one of these breakers, showing where the NC contact is made.

But I digress .... after I cleaned up those contacts, now the 115VAC feed from the switch passed through the three overloads to the M1 contactor's coil and held M1 in, which meant that the HLV-H now stays on (and works) when the start button is released. I also moved the primary feed into the control transformer X1 from 440V (as delivered) down to the three-phase 400V I had created for this machine.

I found two differences between this 1960-ish UK-built HLV-H and Bill's 1966 UK-built HLV-H:

1. All of the contactors run at 115VAC, not 230VAC. The feed from the internal isolation / control transformer to fuse F1 is 115VAC.
2. This machine has only an SPDT reversing switch (unlike the 3PDT switch shown in Bill's diagrams). It has an series of labels added by the original user that explicitly remind the user to turn the machine OFF before changing direction.

FYI, to run this machine, I set up a 3kW 400V VFD set to 50Hz and with a switching frequency of 10kHz followed by a sine wave filter (SWF) to feed the entire machine from this setup. All the secondary motors (speed change, coolant pump, carriage feed), the lamp, and low-speed operation are all working nicely. When running in low speed, it draws around 2A @ 400V. However, I haven't yet been able to get it to work in high-speed mode -- lots of unhappiness in the cabinet or the VFD throws overcurrent trips.