I've spent most of today attempting to get one of these to drive a
wood turning lathe with a 3 ph motor and wonder if anyone here has any
experience of these devices and can help me.

The problem I found was that if I wired the convertor straight to the
motor it would work fine, but if I connected it though the lathe's
supply terminals such that the power to the motor is switched by the
lathe's on /off switches and contactor, the convertor appeared to be
unwilling to work with the low current demand of the contactor coil
(1200 ohms) - the output voltage of the convertor was low and unstable
and the coil would buzz but not pull in.

Are these convertors like switching regulators in that they require a
minimum load to actually work? I could just bypass the lathe switch
wiring but there are two safety microswitches in the circuit and the
on/off switches are a preferable size to those on the convertor, let
alone a better position when using the machine.

Thanks
Rob