VFD or Spindle problems

[tarawa]

I have a box full of them....i had one on the water cooled spindle i gave away. You can trust the Chinese Electrical stuff on these motors, i don't. I only use mains operated equipment eg cable and switchgear and plug etc if i know the current and voltage ratings. Each one to their own.....again lets agree to disagree mate!

If you don’t use the supplied connector, How do you connect to the motor? A picture is worth a thousand words.

[ericks]

If you don’t use the supplied connector, How do you connect to the motor? A picture is worth a thousand words.

First of all, the way you stripped back the insulation of the cable and exposed the inner cores is totally wrong. The cable including the outer sleeve mus go into the plug. Not sure who told you to clamp the cable like that on the z axis plate but its really dangerous

[ericks]

The only place you remove the outer sleeve/insulation is after you have gone into an enclosure or junction box etc....either a gland or plug entry should be used

[ericks]

If the cable is too thick to go into the plug then either get a smaller cable, but make sure the cable can handle the max motor current safely. If the plug is then still too small the install a larger plug
There is no short cuts when it comes to electricity cause it's going to bite you!! Also that drive is not ip rated to be installed in the open....its a fire hazard...the one i just took out was full of timber dust.

I am sorry if this is not what you want to hear....you doing a job that a qualified skilled sparky/pref industrial sparky should do. If not done properly/correctly electricity can be very dangerous!

[ericks]

If you'd like to see the correct way then go to cncrouterparts site....

[wmgeorge]

The way I solved my cable is too big issue. Set a dust proof / water tight J box with a cover of course on the moving part of the Z. Ran the good flexible shielded wire with ground to that J box. Grounded the shield and ground wire inside the box to the Z carriage and then ran perhaps a 6 inch flex cable to the that crappy to small connector, soldered the wires to the pins and bingo its done. I have a removable connector rated for the voltage. It passed the noise test using both my RF signal meter and my oscilloscope.

Do not use a microphone connector for high voltage power!! Or like mactec suggested, do away with the connector and just wire direct, that would work. Some spindles come with a "real" Junction box so you can do it fast and easy.

[ericks]

His current connector is obviously a microphone connector....reason why it has such a tiny cable entry. Not his fault of course!

[GME]

Gary
I went to the post and programmed all the parameters that "mactec54" suggested. P004 and P005 could not be set to what he said (220 and 400 respectively) I don't know why so I left them at the default setting. I then went through all of the rest of the parameters that referenced the default output frequency of 50hz and converted them to its 400hz counterpart. Please see P27 thru P33 which are percentages of the maximum frequency. I don't even know if these settings matter when using the potentiometer.
I then ran thru everything without the motor connected. and the frequency ramped up and down as it is supposed to. Keyboard and potentiometer functions as I believe they are supposed to. I then connected the spindle and it started to rotate and then stops with Error Code 1 (Short Circuit/Power Module Protection/ Current Overload) I again checked my wiring for shorts and there are non from the VFD to the aircraft connector. I figured that the motor is bad so I attached the new spindle that I just ordered. Exactly the same results.
Can it be the way that I grounded everything. Attached are pictures of the instructions and my set up. I checked continuity between pin 4 on the spindle and the motor body (and also connector body) and there is no connection. Is this correct? I grounded everything including the VFD to the router frame. I made special connector blocks to ground the braided shielding of the spindle cable to the framework and VFD ground. Can this be a problem?

"I checked continuity between pin 4 on the spindle and the motor body (and also connector body) and there is no connection."

This statement jumped out at me. I infer from it that you did not attach a ground wire inside the spindle. Otherwise, you would have continuity between the ground pin and the spindle body. While I don't see how that would cause your error message, you need to ground your spindle. Remove the top cap. On the inside, you will find 3 wires attached to the aviation connector that lead back to the 3 hot conductors. There should be a 4th wire for ground, but on Chinese spindles, they rarely, if ever, have one. On my spindle, I drilled and tapped a hole in the inside of the spindle top, attached a wire to it, and soldered it to the unused pin. That gave me a positive continuity reading from the formerly unused pin to the spindle body, meaning that I now have a good ground connection to the spindle. I then ran my power cable back to my control box (you didn't put your VFD in a box) and attached the ground wire to a star ground point inside the box.

From your photos, it looks like you clamped your power cable to an external point and used the clamp to ground the braided cable shield. However, it looks like you twisted the braided shield and ran it outside the clamp to another ground point. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but I believe you are not supposed to create a pigtail out of the shielding and ground it that way. The clamp, if done right, should suffice.

It looks like some of your grounding connections are attached to anodized aluminum extrusions. IMO, that's a bad idea. The anodizing layer is considered non-conductive. Having said that, I've had meters read continuity through an anodized coating, but the actual conductivity should be pretty poor. 80/20 sells grounding connectors that bit through the anodizing layer, so you can get a good ground. You might want to explore that.

I cannot tell enough from your photos to address your wiring in the VFD. I'm thinking something is probably wrong with it. Even a stray strand can give you big problems. davida1234 in a build thread what having fits with his servos. He was getting great tech support from the company that sells them, but nothing they tried would work. David went back to the wiring and found a errant tiny single strand causing a ground, which caused the system to fault. He had to use a magnifying glass to see it. He fixed that, and in doing so, fixed the problem.

It's hard for me to believe that you have a bad spindle, when you are having a fault with both the older and new ones. What are the odds of that? I'm not the best diagnostician, though. Other much more knowledgeable folks here on the Zone may recognize your symptoms.

Oh, and the pictures of your manual were rotated 90 degrees. Much too hard to try to read. I suggest you figure out how to get them into conventional landscape mode. Just guessing, but I suspect you are photographing them with your camera/phone rotated to take in the page. I don't believe that works, when trying to post the photos. Hold the camera/phone in the usual position, even though it may leave white space on each side of the page. IMO, you need to make it as easy as possible, if folks are going to help. (Note: I've never had much luck trying to read VFD manuals. I don't have a good technical background, which is made worse by what I believe is incomprehensible technical writing.

Gary

[GME]

I, like others, solved the too small connector problem by replacing the aviation plug with larger, more suitable one. I used one with a square base, where it mounts to the spindle cap. I had to drill and tap some mounting holes, but no big deal. If memory serves, the part that goes through the hole for the original connector was the correct size, so I didn't have to deal with that. Here's a link and picture of the one i used. It's for 25 amp. Plenty for my 2.2kw water cooled spindle.

Buy Cheap P28K9Q Straight Unshielded Type 4 Pins Electric Circular Aviation Connector



There are a number of replacement connectors out there. Just be sure to get a metal one, or you are not going to be able to properly ground your cable shielding. There are a lot of nice looking plastic ones, but they aren't suitable.

Yes I know this connector looks very large and clunky. It is. I was more interested in function, and this one delivers.

Also, you might want to consider a new cable. I am partial to Igus. I am currently running CF896, but am changing over CF6, which is heavier duty has good shielding and better suited for lots of flexing, like in cable chain.

Here's a link: https://www.igus.com/product/950

Here's a link to a much better priced source for CF6 in various sizes: https://www.automationdirect.com/adc..._control_cable

Gary

[tarawa]

I guess I have to regroup and figure out everything that I did wrong, even though it ran perfect for a year using regular #16 cable (unshielded). I am still trying to figure out how it worked for a year. As for the flexing of the cable, my machine moves exactly 6” x 2”, which wouldn’t put a strain on any cable. The Beldon cable that I am using now has a cable that runs along the braid that you can attach to earth. Even though it is 4 strand #16 wire the diameter of the cable is a whopping 14mm thick. That is a massive cable. To get a connector that can handle this cable, I will probably have to make my own end cap for the spindle on the lathe. I have access to many Amphenol bulkhead and cable connectors that will handle it.
I was wondering why the opposite end of the spindle cable going into the VFD doesn’t seam to be as critical, as the cables just go into the bottom of the VFD without a connector of any kind.
I really appreciate all the help. I will keep plugging along trying to fix all my problems one by one.

Here is a video of my duplicator ( about a year ago). Nothing fancy, just worked.





Changes so far:
New cable
New motor
New VFDs
Several junction boxes with terminal strips.

[tarawa]

I will externally ground the spindle body next

[GME]

I guess I have to regroup and figure out everything that I did wrong, even though it ran perfect for a year using regular #16 cable (unshielded). I am still trying to figure out how it worked for a year. As for the flexing of the cable, my machine moves exactly 6” x 2”, which wouldn’t put a strain on any cable. The Beldon cable that I am using now has a cable that runs along the braid that you can attach to earth. Even though it is 4 strand #16 wire the diameter of the cable is a whopping 14mm thick. That is a massive cable. To get a connector that can handle this cable, I will probably have to make my own end cap for the spindle on the lathe. I have access to many Amphenol bulkhead and cable connectors that will handle it.
I was wondering why the opposite end of the spindle cable going into the VFD doesn’t seam to be as critical, as the cables just go into the bottom of the VFD without a connector of any kind.
I really appreciate all the help. I will keep plugging along trying to fix all my problems one by one.

Here is a video of my duplicator ( about a year ago). Nothing fancy, just worked.





Changes so far:
New cable
New motor
New VFDs
Several junction boxes with terminal strips.

Belkin makes good cables. I wouldn't necessarily change cables. The wiring going to the VFD is important. You need to clamp and ground the shielding at the VFD end as well. As I indicated before, I don't believe your problem lies in the grounding issues. A lot of folks have run, and continue to run, ungrounded spindles. It's very bad practice, but doing so doesn't make the equipment stop working. I'd retrace all the wiring and connections from the breaker box to your VFD, and from the VFD to the spindle. I'm no expert, but I had no trouble getting my VFD & spindle working. You've replaced parts, which suggests to me that it isn't a parts issue. I think you have a wiring/connection issue. No one else seems to have specific suggestions, so you may be looking at hiring a pro to sort it out. If you lived close to me, I'd pay you a visit and work with you on it. I live in Gig Harbor, WA.

Sorry, but I thought you were running a CNC. Interesting machine you designed. If I didn't have a CNC, I'd consider building something like it.

Gary

[tarawa]

wmgeorge

I also switched to two junction boxes.

[tarawa]

I finally got it to work. It had something to do with the initial parameters. Tomorrow I will list all my parameters. The spindle is running at 23999 @ 400hz. It is drawing very little amps and the input voltage is reading 248.5 volts. This has been a pretty good exercise, since now my wiring is much neater and with all the help I got here I have a better and safer machine. This VFD has a few more functions to monitor. I am glad I found this site.

[GME]

I finally got it to work. It had something to do with the initial parameters. Tomorrow I will list all my parameters. The spindle is running at 23999 @ 400hz. It is drawing very little amps and the input voltage is reading 248.5 volts. This has been a pretty good exercise, since now my wiring is much neater and with all the help I got here I have a better and safer machine. This VFD has a few more functions to monitor. I am glad I found this site.

[tarawa]

Here are the parameters that seem to be working. I am sure some that I left default could be tweaked.