Re: 2 phase power to 3 phase power

George -
There's no such animal as two-phase power, it's single phase or 3
phase. There are two legs, but there's still only one phase between
them. Picture this as two dots representing each leg of the single
phase power. There is only one line that can be drawn between them.
This is the phase. With the addition of a single dot for a total of
three, there are then three possible line segments, or phases. THis
is oversimplification, but it's the essence. I now stand prepared to
be barraged by indignant ee's at the mere thought of reducing phases
of electricity to dots and lines, but it's fun to see their pocket
protectors spill their contents as they jump up and down with
excitement ;-)
Re. your phase converter, with only 2 hp you should be fine with a
static phase converter (it's a bank of electrolytic capacitors set to
store and offset the phases to simulate 3 phase). It works for
smaller loads. Bigger (I think the rule of thumb is somewhere around
5 hp, but I stand ready to be called a liar by someone running their
15 hp milling machine off of a static) loads require (and run best)
on a rotary phase converter, which actually generates the phases. A
3 phase motor WILL run on single phase at reduced power, it just
won't start. So, a rotary phase converter is a 3 phase motor which
is somehow started (the 25 hp one I built uses a small pony-motor to
get it spinning) with single phase. It stays running on the single
phase pwer it's fed. The other two pahses are generated by the
spinning armatures and fed back to the panel or whatever to join the
existing phase. Voila, real 3 phase power.
If your interested in more, e-mail me off list and I can step you
through at least my experience in setting these things up. It's not
complicated.

Scott