Why not look for VFD's on ebay? Variable frequency drives are capable
of doing the same thing, taking two phases and turning them into three.
Being solid state, they have no moving parts, will not rust out, and are
perfectly capable of doing what you need. The reliability in a system that
will see rare usage I assume is pretty attractive. Take up a whole lot
less space, wiring, and so forth, also. Any competent reliable electrical
contractor will be able to wire one up, and if you talked nicely enough,
he'll liably do it for free.
Even if you don't pay more in up-front costs, shipping will for sure be
a whole lot less!

wrote in message
oups.com...
| Hello,
| First of all let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who
| by virtue of reading this line have taken time out of your busy lives
| in order to do so. I thank you profusely. I am working towards
| achieving the highest rank and honor of scouting, by becoming an Eagle
| Scout through completing a project as part of the Boy Scouts of America
| program.
|
| My project is rather complex in nature and by virtue of this fact
| has been difficult to accomplish, with forecasted expenses the
| government gave us that come in well over $50,000. For my project we
| are going to take two Cold War era civil defense sirens and install
| them in a small rural community in Arizona north of Phoenix called Mesa
| Del Caballo which is near Payson Arizona, just for a reference point
| for anyone who is actually from Arizona. This is a small mountain
| community surrounded by the forest. Arizona has been going through a
| massive drought over the past years, and as a result, combined with the
| disastrous effects of the devastating bark beetle, our forests have
| been highly susceptible as of late to pernicious wild fires. My goal is
| to set up these two sirens in this community, one on one end, one on
| the other, such that if there ever were a forest fire, or other
| disaster which required a quick evacuation, the entire town could be
| alerted via these sirens which would span all distance and language
| barriers.
|
| The government has been extraordinarily helpful to my project so
| far by letting us borrow two civil defense sirens each valued at
| roughly $25,000. Just to clear up a misconception we can only borrow
| the sirens per regulations that were set up before the Cold War when
| the sirens were originally installed throughout most of the greater
| Phoenix Arizona area. The sirens we are "borrowing" for the project
| should never need to be returned, it was just part of the original
| contract in case of an extreme unpredictable emergency.
|
| The problem we have run into is that we now have two Cold War era
| civil defense sirens, but we don't have the money required to install
| them. The representative from the Arizona Government estimated the
| actual installation to be somewhere around $75,000. Our estimates upon
| further investigation show it to be a smaller figure, but nevertheless
| still a massively large amount. The two parts we stand in need of right
| now are two 220 volt 50hp phase converters to go from 1 phase to 3
| phase. These would be tax deductible, and we can provide proof of their
| purpose for this project upon request. We are looking for a spare 50hp
| phase converter that can be donated to our project. It does not need to
| be new, used or surplus is absolutely fine. The exact specifications of
| the civil defense siren are below:
|
| We are starting off with a 220 volt, 200 amp, 1 phase line.
| The siren we seek to power has three separate motors.
| Motor 1 is a 7hp
| Motor 2 is a 4.5hp
| Motor 3 is a 1.5hp
| RLA is 89amps, 220 volt, 3 phase
|
| I was told by a specialist per these specifications that we needed
| a 50hp phase converter. If anyone has a spare they can donate or knows
| of a possibility for a donation, or can point us in the right
| direction, or has any other helpful information for the project we
| would deeply appreciate every little thing we can get at this point!
| Thank you for your time in reading this letter. I deeply appreciate it.
| In case my email address is blocked as I have begun to notice that many
| usenet services do, I will spell it out here. It is: jkeagle13 at aol
| dot com
|
| Thank you!
|