Hey All,
I am a noob to the electronics end of CNC. Please bear with me if I am asking the wrong question, or asking the right questions wrongly!
I have a Syil x4, 2013 model, 110V mill. It has never been run. I finally got my shop built so I fired it up using Mach 3 and spare PC I had. No sooner had I started it up than I heard a loud pop in the cabinet. I noticed the 20A fuse in the spindle controller board was fried. So I put in a new fuse, fired it up and POP again. The third time I tried it I was looking in the cabinet and saw a flash. It turns out that 2 of the capacitors on the spindle controller board had blown in half and they were arcing across each other.
Kind of a bummer on a machine that was never run before.
Syil America doesn't have a board, I can't get in touch with Charter Oak Automation. Jeff at Syil America recommended DMM in Canada. Michael at DMM (very helpful!) recommended trying to get either a generic spindle controller from a place like Automation Direct, or maybe a whole new controller in the form of a Centroid Acorn system.
Have any of you ever replaced an X4 spindle controller with generic off the shelf part? If so, how do I figure out what I need?
Has anyone here done a complete Acorn type upgrade? If so, I'd love to know how it went and how much you spent.
Thanks for any insight,
CE
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jsnsykes, The board is marked:
HONCAR HBLC-1100-300H-S008(A)
Powermainboard
VER 1.0 2012.05.18
I'd also be really curious as to what route you will be taking with your machine. Again, total noob here, but aren't motors and such available here in the states that could be replacements for yours?
Thanks for the reply.
CE
Yes, many options are available. I will likely fix my issues with the spindle board by bypassing the interlock, or dumbing it down somehow, and get a centroid acorn board to handle the rest. Thus upgrading the entire system, and putting one more step between myself and my reliance on Syil to help (because they dont/cant)
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
So the Acorn board doesn't control the spindle right? It just has the 0-10 volt output for the spindle driver you choose. Do I have that right? So even if I went with an Acorn control, I'd still have to get myself a spindle controller.
Also, what is an interlock?
It would be cool if I could just find a spindle controller that was compatible with the rest of the Syil electronics, I just have no clue how to figure that out.
Again thank you,
CE
Pretty much any two horsepower VFD should be more than sufficient to run your spindle motor.
eBay has many choices, Hitachi makes a very good unit, this model requires 220 single phase.
See attached link:
Hitachi NES1-015SB with Operator NES1-OP 2HP 200-240volt also Phase Converter | eBay
Jeff..
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Take a look at the spindle motor and see if it has any specs so that we can determine what voltage the spindle motor is.
Jeff...
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
If the output on the original spindle drive has U V W terminals that the spindle motor is connected to then the motor is three phase.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
the blown components are NTC (Negative Temperature Coefficient) thermistors not capacitors
if the 3 components RT1 , RT2 & RT3 are all the same device you should be able to read the part number to order replacements
they are used to reduce the switch on surge current
if you search for the data sheet you may find the cold resistance may be 10 ohms and as the thermisters heat up the drop to a fraction of an ohm
John
PS
depending on how long it has been since the VFD was last powered
its possible the electrolytic capacitors needed reforming and would of resulted in a large leakage current when you powered your machine
Last edited by john-100; 03-23-2018 at 07:24 AM. Reason: add PS
John,
You learned me something new! Thank you.
It looks like the NTC's have 5D-20 on them. I went ahead and ordered 3 of them to try. After all if this unit is toast, then there is no harm in trying a few new thermistors on it.
The machine hadn't been powered up in 4 years, so yeah, long time. What is reforming? Is that something I do?
Thanks again!
CE
Thermistors are not very expensive to replace however a shorted IGBT may also be the reason for the excessive overcurrent damage.
Jeff...
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Jeff,
I just looked up "testing an IGBT" and it looks like I could do so with my ohmmeter. BUT, I don't know where to find it! Is it part of the driver board or is it a lone component in the machine. Or is this impossible to tell without looking at it.
Guys, I really appreciate all this help. This board and thread are giving me confidence that I can work all this out eventually!
CE
depending on the design you may not see six IGBT
some VFD's have the six IGBT inside a single moulded encapsulation with 5 high current terminals
(2 DC in & 3 outputs to a 3 phase motor ) and 12 low current terminals for the drive to the 6 IGBT gates
electrolytic capacitors depend on a thin oxide layer on the aluminium foil that forms the anode (positive electrode)
over time the oxide layer deteriorates when the capacitor is not powered
so after several years the capacitor will go short circuit when you first power the equipment
I have only reformed the HT electrolytic capacitors in a couple of valve (tube) radios from the 40's and 50's
but basically you need to connect a variable voltage current limited supply across the capacitors
starting at a low voltage and as the leakage current drops slowly increasing the voltage until you have reached the maximum for the capacitor
for a VFD without the motor being connected
the ideal way to reform the capacitors would be to use a 0 to 300 or 400V DC current limited bench power supply across the capacitors
alternatively use a variac or multi tapped transformer with a set of wire wound resistors
to apply a current limited variable voltage to the VFD mains in terminals
my initial tests for a VFD that is normally is powered by a single phase 250V supply in the UK
I would start at 30V AC at the mains input terminals and increase it in 20 to 30V steps until the full mains voltage is applied
with a 20K 10W resistor to limit the current
or for a 120V VFD use 10 to 20V steps
the question is what is value in uF and voltage is the capacitors used on your VFD ?
and does it have several 400V capacitors in parallel or a combination of 200 V capacitors in series & parallel ?
( in PC's ATX power supplies you find two 200V capacitors in series to form a 400V capacitor in a circuit that either
rectifies 240V AC to produce 340V DC
or forms a rectifer / voltage doubler to produce 340VDc from 120V AC )
photos of the board will help
John
John,
Will take and post some videos of the board today. It sounds like reforming the capacitors is a bit out of my wheelhouse! I wish I had your electronic acumen. But I'll keep at it. Maybe one day
Thank you,
CE
Attached are a few pics of the spindle motor and the controller board.
If anyone can tell me anything about the motor (phases, what type of controller would work, etc) That'd be great. I'm also curious if I have a IGBT I can test in here. Thanks,
What you have is actually a BLDC motor, see attached link for a source for replacement.
High Torque 1100W 6000RPM Spindle BLDC Motor, View Spindle BLDC motor, Product Details from Shenzhen Hishine Energy & Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. on Alibaba.com
Alibaba Manufacturer Directory - Suppliers, Manufacturers, Exporters & Importers
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.