Heh, I remember an 8'x1" capacity shear with a 20 HP motor and the MOAL
flywheel. Had a manual starter: a 2' long lever that you flipped one way
to energize the start windings, wait about 15 seconds then flip it the
other way to energize the run windings. If you needed a break, just make
sure to not wait quite long enough, it would blow the fuses on the run
windings. Of course that meant having to put up with the plant
electrician giving you an earful about your origin, habits, morals, and
destination but a break is a break.
Of course that presents the problem where you start up the gen set. Having
worked with a number of mechanical die cut presses, spinning up the flywheel
is the MOAL (mother of all loads). So now you need a soft start VFD as an
input to the motor/genset. Most HSM'ers would just skip the genset and use
the VFD.


Wes