On Sunday, December 29, 2019 at 3:14:20 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I scrapped my GE washing machine. Actually, it scrapped itself when
the drum spider broke making repair too expensive to consider. But now
I have what appears to be a nice 3 phase motor. The specs are
ambiguous. The voltage is listed as variable. The frequencey is listed
as variable. The amperage is listed as 2.5 amps. So at least there's
that. It is quite heavy.
Since I removed all the electronics and the wiring harness I am
going to try to get the motor to run on the bench and then measure the
voltages at different speeds.
I have a pretty nice DVM but I don't know how well it will measure
AC voltage at frequencies much above 60 Hz. The meter will measure AC
frequency. But I'm guessing that the output from the washing machine
VFD is probably pretty far from a good sine wave. The VFD is a pretty
simple bare bones unit. Anybody know?
I do have a VFD that takes 120 volt single phase input and outputs
230 volts at up to 400 Hz. I would like to run the motor from it if I
can but what if the voltage is too high? Can the motor be run at too
high voltage for a while without damage? Will too high voltage just
cause overheating? Since the motor is VFD rated the insulation must be
pretty good so I'm thinking too high voltage is probably OK for at
least a few minutes.
If I can suss out what the original GE VFD expects for signals from
the washing machine control and am able to copy them I will do that.
But If I can't then I will want to try another VFD that I know how to
control.
There are at least two reasons I want to re-use this motor. One is
that I hate to throw out good stuff. It ****es me off to waste stuff.
Another reason to re-use the motor is that it is a high quality motor.
The way it was used in the washer to drive the drum required high
quality bearings and general high quality robust construction. The
drive belt tension was extremely high so this put a very high side
load on the front motor bearing and a high side load on the rear
bearing. The motor bearings still feel great and will probably last
forever.
I'm thinking that with the proper reduction the motor would make a
great motor for a small lathe and my son has a 9 inch South Bend that
would be much easier to use if it had infinite speed control.
Thanks,
Eric

Did the washer run on 120 or 240? You should have saved the motor control board and the necessary parts of the harness.

The voltage and frequency aren't ambiguous, since the drive voltage has to change with the frequency.