ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

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Thread: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

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    Default ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    A Tormach owner recently posted a thread about how he removed the mechanical cooling fan from his mill motor and replaced it with a 3 D printed housing which utilizes an electric fan for motor cooling. The advantage being less vibration from those plastic fan blades at high rpm and consistent cooling even when the motor is operating at lower speeds. This is more important for those with the VFD drives where the spindle speeds are regulated by the motor rather than through belts and sheaves. However, it could even be a good upgrade for guys running AC motors, as the fan can be wired such that it continues to run after the motor is shut down to eliminate that heat build up that occurs when the fan stops.
    It turns out that the Tormach 1100 spindle motor is the same dimensions as out Mill Turn motors and some of our earlier Patriot models, so the fan housing was a perfect fit. I ordered one just to test it out on the lathe and now have a second one on order for the mill. In standard configuration, the fan housing comes with a 12 volt fan which you can wire up to a simple wall wart, or on our VFD machines, you can wire it to the 12 volt output of the inverter so it comes on whenever the spindle power switch is on. I had a couple of 120 volt fans on the shelf which were the same mounting dimension, only a little thicker. I decided to go with the 120 volt version and wired it into my spindle on-off switch so it comes on when the VFD is on. These housings will fit all Mill Turn Machines, Turnado lathes and all the Patriot machines which had either the 1.5 or 2 HP motors. They will also fit earlier Shoptask/Shopmaster machines which used the AC motors so long as the motor housing dimensions are the same.
    To be sure it will fit your motor, remove the metal fan cover and measure it- the ID should be 6 7/8" and it should have 3 mounting holes spaced around at 120 degrees about 5/8" from the edge.
    The fan mounting dimensions are 4.75 square with a 4.125 bolt pattern and the 12 volt fan is 1" thick while the 120 volt fan is 1.5" thick.

    You can contact Gary directly to order your unit with or without fan.
    garyclick@bellsouth.net

    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-1-jpg
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-2-jpg
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-4-jpg
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-5-jpg

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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by JTJT View Post
    A Tormach owner recently posted a thread about how he removed the mechanical cooling fan from his mill motor and replaced it with a 3 D printed housing which utilizes an electric fan for motor cooling. The advantage being less vibration from those plastic fan blades at high rpm and consistent cooling even when the motor is operating at lower speeds. This is more important for those with the VFD drives where the spindle speeds are regulated by the motor rather than through belts and sheaves. However, it could even be a good upgrade for guys running AC motors, as the fan can be wired such that it continues to run after the motor is shut down to eliminate that heat build up that occurs when the fan stops.
    It turns out that the Tormach 1100 spindle motor is the same dimensions as out Mill Turn motors and some of our earlier Patriot models, so the fan housing was a perfect fit. I ordered one just to test it out on the lathe and now have a second one on order for the mill. In standard configuration, the fan housing comes with a 12 volt fan which you can wire up to a simple wall wart, or on our VFD machines, you can wire it to the 12 volt output of the inverter so it comes on whenever the spindle power switch is on. I had a couple of 120 volt fans on the shelf which were the same mounting dimension, only a little thicker. I decided to go with the 120 volt version and wired it into my spindle on-off switch so it comes on when the VFD is on. These housings will fit all Mill Turn Machines, Turnado lathes and all the Patriot machines which had either the 1.5 or 2 HP motors. They will also fit earlier Shoptask/Shopmaster machines which used the AC motors so long as the motor housing dimensions are the same.
    To be sure it will fit your motor, remove the metal fan cover and measure it- the ID should be 6 7/8" and it should have 3 mounting holes spaced around at 120 degrees about 5/8" from the edge.
    The fan mounting dimensions are 4.75 square with a 4.125 bolt pattern and the 12 volt fan is 1" thick while the 120 volt fan is 1.5" thick.

    You can contact Gary directly to order your unit with or without fan.
    garyclick@bellsouth.net

    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-1-jpg
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-2-jpg
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-4-jpg
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-5-jpg
    Just an update- got the second fan unit from Gary and he made it 1/2" taller for the 120 volt fan. Installed it on the mill motor and it's a nice clean setup.
    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-6-jpg

    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-7-jpg

    Also had a chance to put the fan to the test on the lathe. I had some gears that needed the hubs removed and didn't want to put too much chuck pressure on the teeth, so I wrote the program to turn the spindle at 100 rpm and a very low feed rate because of the low jaw pressure and the stickout of the blade. The wall thickness was .5" so it took some time to go all the way through, but the lathe motor stayed nice and cool with the fan. If I had relied on the original fan turning that slowly, the heat buildup would have been a lot.

    ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-fan-8-jpg



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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    I have the last version of the VFD Patriot, but only can go as low as about 250 RPM or the motor gets real unstable in speed. Below around 200 or lower the VFD will stop showing an error. Are there any parameters to allow stable RPM below 250?



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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by BlackICE1 View Post
    I have the last version of the VFD Patriot, but only can go as low as about 250 RPM or the motor gets real unstable in speed. Below around 200 or lower the VFD will stop showing an error. Are there any parameters to allow stable RPM below 250?
    What is the machine serial #? What is the Hz reading at 200 rpm? On the inverter, codes P0-014 and 015 should be set to 100. Codes P0-009 and 010 should set set to 1.5



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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by JTJT View Post
    What is the machine serial #? What is the Hz reading at 200 rpm? On the inverter, codes P0-014 and 015 should be set to 100. Codes P0-009 and 010 should set set to 1.5
    S/N - 14097
    at 200 rpm 10 hz

    09 - 1 accel time in 0.1 units
    10 - 1 decel time in 0.1 units
    14 - 230 auto torque compensation gain in 0.1% units
    15 - 230 auto slip compensation gain in 0.1% units

    I also have question about these other parameters

    9 and 10 are probably wrong the motor can't possibly meet a 0.1 second acceleration time. However the values in my manual are even worst at 0.5!

    12 - 50 Voltage/Freq curve the manual shows a table from values from 1 to 6, I have a 50 set there but since the motor nameplate shows 60hz the number should be 4 or 5, not 50.

    14 and 15 I'm not sure if the units are really like the manual says, which would be a 23% torque gain, or is it a 230% torque gain? I'm guessing that it is a 230% gain because if I monitor the current output of the VFD without any machining loads the current about doubles when I drop the RPM to 200 vs 1000.


    Also it seems that the Gecko drive doesn't put out a linear 0 to 10v for motor speed and the rpm selection is a little off. I have read that it doesn't put out 10v when the max rpm is selected. According the the VFD manual I could probably fix this by raising the max VFD frequency because the 10V will never happen that max will never happen and the rpm will be more correct. I tried using Mach3 PID but the motor is isn't sable in lower rpms and hunts around. At higher RPMs the PID works fine.

    I got my information from this link

    http://www.automationtechnologiesinc...NUAL-E-100.pdf



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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by BlackICE1 View Post
    S/N - 14097
    at 200 rpm 10 hz

    09 - 1 accel time in 0.1 units
    10 - 1 decel time in 0.1 units
    14 - 230 auto torque compensation gain in 0.1% units
    15 - 230 auto slip compensation gain in 0.1% units

    Set P0-009 and 010 to 1.5 .1 is impossible to accelerate that fast.
    Set P0-014 and 015 to 100

    I also have question about these other parameters

    9 and 10 are probably wrong the motor can't possibly meet a 0.1 second acceleration time. However the values in my manual are even worst at 0.5!

    0.1 is impossible- 0.5 is better, but still touchy- use 1.5 These values are acceleration to max in seconds, so the larger the number, the slower the acceleration.

    12 - 50 Voltage/Freq curve the manual shows a table from values from 1 to 6, I have a 50 set there but since the motor nameplate shows 60hz the number should be 4 or 5, not 50.

    Nowforever changed their software in this setting and now your only choices are 50 or 60- since your motors are 60Hz, set this one to 60

    14 and 15 I'm not sure if the units are really like the manual says, which would be a 23% torque gain, or is it a 230% torque gain? I'm guessing that it is a 230% gain because if I monitor the current output of the VFD without any machining loads the current about doubles when I drop the RPM to 200 vs 1000.

    Yes, this is a torque boost for low rpm


    Also it seems that the Gecko drive doesn't put out a linear 0 to 10v for motor speed and the rpm selection is a little off. I have read that it doesn't put out 10v when the max rpm is selected. According the the VFD manual I could probably fix this by raising the max VFD frequency because the 10V will never happen that max will never happen and the rpm will be more correct. I tried using Mach3 PID but the motor is isn't sable in lower rpms and hunts around. At higher RPMs the PID works fine.

    Go back to the default PID settings in Mach 3, you can find screen shots of all settings on our web site under SPECS AND TECHNICAL BULLETINS.
    The momentary rpm over-run is a function of the Nowforever which puts out 12.8 volts and the Gecko asks for only 10 volts. So for a second the rpm will overshoot due to the higher voltage until Mach 3 counts the pulses from the spindle sensor and adjusts the voltage down to the correct amount. There is an easy fix for this with a voltage regulator unit that wires into the circuit- cost is under 1.00.

    I got my information from this link

    http://www.automationtechnologiesinc...NUAL-E-100.pdf



    Answers above in the quote line by line.
    Your model machine had a larger motor drive pulley for rpm in the 3000 max range, measure the diameter and we may have a smaller one that will fit- to reduce the rpm, which will help with the low rpm inconsistency.



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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Thanks for the vfd settings. That addressed most of the problems. My max rpm on the lathe is 2400 at 120Hz so I don't think I have the larger pulley. I got it tuned pretty close without using mach 3 PIDs. I couldn't get the PID to work in all cases. It has a bad overrun when moving to higher speeds and around 2350 RPM it would oscillate up and down, but only around that speed. At 2300 and 2400 it's fine.

    Using the VFD setup I limited the spindle rpms from 150 to 2400 rpm. I did get it to work at smoothly at 100 RPM at 5 HZ but wonder how safe is that to use and how much torque is available to machine with at the low of a speed without burning up the motor. Probably even 200 rpm isn't good for longer periods of time. Enforcing a 150 lower limit will prevent a user from programming too low of a value, maybe causing motor damage.

    The fan housing shown here doesn't look like it would fit on the lathe motor of the Patriot. It looks like it would extend into the mill motor.

    Last edited by BlackICE1; 03-26-2017 at 02:46 AM.


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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by BlackICE1 View Post
    Thanks for the vfd settings. That addressed most of the problems. My max rpm on the lathe is 2400 at 120Hz so I don't think I have the larger pulley. I got it tuned pretty close without using mach 3 PIDs. I couldn't get the PID to work in all cases. It has a bad overrun when moving to higher speeds and around 2350 RPM it would oscillate up and down, but only around that speed. At 2300 and 2400 it's fine.

    Using the VFD setup I limited the spindle rpms from 150 to 2400 rpm. I did get it to work at smoothly at 100 RPM at 5 HZ but wonder how safe is that to use and how much torque is available to machine with at the low of a speed without burning up the motor. Probably even 200 rpm isn't good for longer periods of time. Enforcing a 150 lower limit will prevent a user from programming too low of a value, maybe causing motor damage.

    The fan housing shown here doesn't look like it would fit on the lathe motor of the Patriot. It looks like it would extend into the mill motor.
    Your torque should still be good at the low rpms, but yes, the heat is a problem because the stock motor fan will not move enough air to cool the motor. There is adjustment on the mill motor, and maybe with a belt change it could move far enough to clear the electric fan housing. The 120 volt housing is 1" longer than the stock, but the 12 volt housing is only 1/2" longer, and you have a good 12V power source in the VFD.
    Follow the instructions attached for your spindle pulley settings- it may cure your high rpm fluctuations.
    If you want to drop your lathe rpm's down to a lower range, measure the diameter of your motor pulley and we may be able to supply a smaller pulley.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-setting-spindle-pulleys-mach-3-pdf  


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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by JTJT View Post
    Your torque should still be good at the low rpms, but yes, the heat is a problem because the stock motor fan will not move enough air to cool the motor. There is adjustment on the mill motor, and maybe with a belt change it could move far enough to clear the electric fan housing. The 120 volt housing is 1" longer than the stock, but the 12 volt housing is only 1/2" longer, and you have a good 12V power source in the VFD.
    Follow the instructions attached for your spindle pulley settings- it may cure your high rpm fluctuations.
    If you want to drop your lathe rpm's down to a lower range, measure the diameter of your motor pulley and we may be able to supply a smaller pulley.
    I can get 100 rpm down low but I'm sure the torque isn't great. I machined some 6" diameter cast iron at 250 rpm and even with what I thought was a light cut stalled the motor. So more torque would be good, but the trade off losing higher rpm isn't what I need most of the time.

    I lied to mach3 and said the spindles rpm went higher, so that when 2400 rpm is chosen the voltage from the Gecko to the VFD was 10V. Any rpm above that 2400 doesn't do anything. On the low end I lowered RPM until got a real 150 rpm and then set in the VFD a lower Hz limit corresponding to that 150 RPM. So anything rpm from mach3 below 150 doesn't do anything. Then with PID off I get close to the right rpms in between 150 to 2400 but it could be off by more than 150 RPM at times. Not a bid deal, but I tried turning on PID control and seem to be done wrong in mach3. First trying just the P value, no matter what the value was (even a really high one like 10!) at some RPM settings I couldn't get the real RPMs high enough to match. This doesn't make any sense at all. At a too high of a P value the real RPM should oscillate about and below the set RPM, yet it moved around always much below the set RPM.

    I'll go back once again to try it your recommend way, but I think I did it before but didn't like it for some reason. Doing it that way I could never get the max rpm of 2400 unless pid was turned on. With PID on I got over run and hunting, but that was before the fixed vfd parameters. However I don't have a lot of faith in mach3 PID based on testing of just the P.

    Where does the 12.7 V input to the VFD come from when it should be limited to 10v? Where would I put a 10v regulator to fix it?



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    Default Re: ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE

    Quote Originally Posted by BlackICE1 View Post
    I can get 100 rpm down low but I'm sure the torque isn't great. I machined some 6" diameter cast iron at 250 rpm and even with what I thought was a light cut stalled the motor. So more torque would be good, but the trade off losing higher rpm isn't what I need most of the time.

    I lied to mach3 and said the spindles rpm went higher, so that when 2400 rpm is chosen the voltage from the Gecko to the VFD was 10V. Any rpm above that 2400 doesn't do anything. On the low end I lowered RPM until got a real 150 rpm and then set in the VFD a lower Hz limit corresponding to that 150 RPM. So anything rpm from mach3 below 150 doesn't do anything. Then with PID off I get close to the right rpms in between 150 to 2400 but it could be off by more than 150 RPM at times. Not a bid deal, but I tried turning on PID control and seem to be done wrong in mach3. First trying just the P value, no matter what the value was (even a really high one like 10!) at some RPM settings I couldn't get the real RPMs high enough to match. This doesn't make any sense at all. At a too high of a P value the real RPM should oscillate about and below the set RPM, yet it moved around always much below the set RPM.

    I'll go back once again to try it your recommend way, but I think I did it before but didn't like it for some reason. Doing it that way I could never get the max rpm of 2400 unless pid was turned on. With PID on I got over run and hunting, but that was before the fixed vfd parameters. However I don't have a lot of faith in mach3 PID based on testing of just the P.

    Where does the 12.7 V input to the VFD come from when it should be limited to 10v? Where would I put a 10v regulator to fix it?
    We tried all sorts of setting in PID and it seems to do hardly anything.
    The 12.8 volts comes off the VFD terminal marked 12V- here is a file on the voltage regulator-

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails ELECTRIC FAN UPGRADE-voltage-regulator-nowforever-inverter-pdf  


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