[Sundayforsammy]

Well now I think the trouble begins,

I went ahead and ordered the 1k5 spindle and VFD from the ebay supplier and today it arrived. I was expecting a couple of different items so was not sure what this one would be but as it was quite light so I thought it would be the spindle mount I am waiting for. I opened the box with some excitement to get on with the next stage of my CNC upgrade, as I opened up the box I see a VFD power supply great I thought, but then I realised that was it. Where is the Spindle ? damn they have not sent the spindle, the spindle is missing.
The delivery man is long gone so I could not grab hold of him, they usually hang around filling in paper work in there vans for ages. Not this time, he was off in a jiffy

Shot a message over to the ebay seller but now with the time difference I don't expect any replies until tomorrow.

[Oldmanandhistoy]

Did you get a tracking number/s as there is a chance you will receive them in two separate parcels?

Also they may be coming from two different countries and one maybe held up in customs.

John

[Sundayforsammy]

I do hope that is the situation and I think you will be correct as I just checked the tracking of the parcel that arrived on the UPS website and the weight is correct for the one parcel delivered. I do not have a second tracking number in case of a second parcel. I am sure the reply from the seller will be as you have said. I fell a little better about it now.

[aarggh]

The VFD from memory weighs less than 1kg, but a 1.5kw spindle is around 3-5kg depending on the model diameter. They feel like a big round hunk of solid steel, so at least you should have the parcel weight description to back you up worst case scenario.

Take snapshots of the tracking info as some carriers wipe historical data.

cheers, Ian

[Sundayforsammy]

I got a reply from the seller and I was told they did not send the spindle as it did not work so it was sent in a second package and provided a new tracking number. After checking the tracking number this morning I see it is waiting to be picked up by DPD. I suspect it had nothing to do with a non working spindle as I would have thought they would have more than one. It is just an excuse for forgetting to send it.
At least it is sorted and I didn't have a problem with them, I don't have and problem with waiting either as I don't have the spindle mount yet anyway.

Once I get everything I will document the upgrade with pictures.

[Oldmanandhistoy]

Good to hear,

Using Ebay is like taking a walk through a mine field, never know what's going to happen.
I bought an item from Ebay he claimed it was in the UK, truth was it was shipped from Germany and in two separate parcels.They came a day apart but on this occasion it was worth the trouble.
All this multiple users for the same seller and claims of the item being in the UK but not, they aren't doing themselves any favours where trust is concerned.

Look forward to the pictures and updates.

John

[A_Camera]

I have now just went ahead and ordered the Chinese 1k5 water cooled 65mm vfd spindle from my earlier link.

Hi,

Did you receive every part and connected it? What is your feeling? Is it good quality?

Another question... It concerns power consumption. Every VFD I look at states if it is for one phase or three phases and the voltages needed but not a single one specifies the input current. I did a little googling and looking at different brand, I found somewhere that for the one phase 230V 1.5kW the needed input current is 16A or more. Is that really the case? It is not really for me why they always specify input voltage, number of phases, output voltage and output current, but NEVER the input current. Is there any reason for that? Do people have unlimited access to current in their homes? In my home the highest current I can pull out of one circuit is 16A, so that is OK, but there is an obvious risk for overload if I'd operate another machine or somebody in my home would start cooking coffee, start a household white-wear or something else unexpectedly. It may cause issues. Is there a list somewhere about the INPUT voltage AND current needs of different VFD? I mean:

0.8kW 1phase 230VAC ????Ampere
1.5kW 1phase 230VAC ????Ampere
2.2kW 1phase 230VAC ????Ampere

Or... is there a formula to calculate this which I have missed?

Another thing is earth leakage/personal protection. I read a warning about this, saying that earth leakage protection must be special, normal protection may trip if VFD is used. I can't bypass this in my home, but perhaps this is not an issue in your home, so you can't answer this question, but have you noticed any issues?

I am asking you this because UK and Sweden are in many ways similar, even if our wall plugs are completely different, you are using the same kind of power, 230VAC single phase in your wall plugs, like we do. In USA it is different, some time not easy to follow the discussion when Americans are involved, some speak about 220VAC like if it was the same as in Europe, when it is actually two phases, some speak about 120VAC... and so on. Of course, I'd appreciate if some other people from Europe would chip in here and answer my questions, but hopefully you can give some feedback as well.

Thanks.

[Stigoe]

I have an OmioCNC with a 2.2kW spindle and I have no problems running it on a 16A circuit including including other equipment, but I haven't really loaded it up yet. I'm also using a regular earth leakage protection and circuit breaker in one unit, nothing special protection.

[A_Camera]

I have an OmioCNC with a 2.2kW spindle and I have no problems running it on a 16A circuit including including other equipment, but I haven't really loaded it up yet. I'm also using a regular earth leakage protection and circuit breaker in one unit, nothing special protection.

Thank you very much. This is exactly what I wished to hear. I will definitely not use 2.2kW, so if you can run that then I should be able to run 1.5kW. Perhaps not using the vacuum cleaner or other high current consumers on the same circuit. Anyway, especially the fact that you also have earth leakage protection is very interesting information, because if that trips all the time than it is impossible to use a VFD.

I am currently considering a Bosh or Hitachi VFD. Which VFD are you using? A nameless Chinese or a branded one?

[Sundayforsammy]

Hi, The spindle actually just turned up today about an hour ago, I have temp. wired it up just to check it is working and all seems ok.

In the UK my ring mains is 30 amp so that will be plenty power, my main consumer unit has a 30amp RCD/ trip on the circuit that the VFD will be powered from so once I am able to modify the CNC Z axis to hold the new spindle mount I will be able to find out if it will cause it to trip. I ran the spindle on the same circuit today without a problem but the spindle was not under any load.

The VFD that I have has the marking HY01D523B on the side but is an ASKPOWER A131.

The spindle only has a 3 pin connector so has no earth, I will change the connector to 4 pin one and add an earth, I also need to source some 4 way + shield spindle cable, water pump and fittings.

[A_Camera]

Thank you. Even my incoming main is considerably more than 16A but each individual circuit can't be loaded with more than 16A. That is the specification of the wall outlet as well as the fuse on each circuit.

This is what gave me second thoughts:

Attachment 315410

It says "Rated input current" 16A for the 1.5kW and a 2.2kW needs 22.5A, which is well outside my limit. Perhaps the Chinese VFDs don't really demand that much because they are under-dimensioned and over specified and they may not deliver what they promise, but if nobody checks and nobody needs more than nobody is hurt, but I am a bit concerned that if I buy a "real" brand this might be an issue for me, that's why I asked these questions.

[aarggh]

Funnily enough I was thinking earlier today of putting a load meter on my gear here in OZ (230V) as I run a fairly big dust extractor, the cnc machine and 1.5Kw spindle, the coolant pump, and some lighting all off a circuit with a 10a breaker, and it seems pretty happy, so I think a lot of specs do get over stated by the suppliers. The results of the load meter will be interesting.

cheers, Ian

[A_Camera]

Funnily enough I was thinking earlier today of putting a load meter on my gear here in OZ (230V) as I run a fairly big dust extractor, the cnc machine and 1.5Kw spindle, the coolant pump, and some lighting all off a circuit with a 10a breaker, and it seems pretty happy, so I think a lot of specs do get over stated by the suppliers. The results of the load meter will be interesting.

cheers, Ian

That's weird. So much error in the specs is not very good. 230V 1.5kW is already over 6.5A on it's own, as one phase, that and the vac alone should trip the 10A breaker, unless your vac is a very small one. My vacuum cleaner draws 2.2kW at maximum speed and it would certainly trip the breaker if I was running a VFD on the same circuit. Add to that the fact that a VFD is three phase out 1.5kW, so input power should be more than 230V 1.5kW calculation gives. OK, the VFDs are made for higher, typically 240V, but even in that case, I'd expect the circuit breaker to trip if I had all what you describe on one circuit and had only 10A breaker. Anyway, I guess you are running a Chinese VFD, and in that case that's what I suspect as over specified, maybe that's why they never state the input current... too easy to check for a user. I think that a real brand may be more accurately specified, so I really believe that the Hitachi specs are right. It is also more logical that the input current would be this high for three phase 1.5kW, after all, you never can get more power out of the wall than what you put in, so even if 3x1.5kW ==> 19.5 A is very much simplified, it is nearer to reality and more logical than than 1x1.5kW ==> 6.5A, so 16A is definitely realistic for 1phase 230V1.5kW VFD.

Please, if you find the time, hook up a power meter. I am very curious. Whatever I will buy, I will definitely check it to avoid future surprises and to know what to expect.

[aarggh]

Ok, curiosity got the better of me so I went did a quick power load test that I think would represent fairly common and general use. Working in IT you get used to specs being rated at their absolute worst case scenario, fully kitted out with all options and under maximum load (towing an Airbus), and in all our testing we've always found real load ratings to be well under in practical use, but the results here did surprise me somewhat even so. I've produced some fairly meaningful stats and constants that might prove useful to some, even if they are fairly crudely derived.

The setup is:

Pentium 4 computer and 24" LCD
1.5kW spindle and Sunfar E300 VFD (from memory)
542 drivers and ~50VDC linear power supply
~8-15W submerged coolant pump
1500W dust extractor

The dust extractor is on its own power feed (but still fed by the same 10A breaker) so I measured that separately. It's a pretty efficient variable speed model with an inline cyclonic chamber, and I usually run it at around 50% but for this I ran it around 75% and it came up at 875W.

The test sequence:
Powering up the 6090B cnc machine and pump was 80W
Powering up the computer and LCD, which also has the NCStudio controller card and applies power to the steppers to lock them at startup, brought the total now to 185W
Zeroing the 3 axis at roughly 2.5m/min brought the total to 250W
Moving all 3 axis at 4m/min rapids from one corner of the machine to the other brought the total to 300W

I then ran an MDF pocketing job 230mm x 180mm x 15mm using the very best $3 Chinese 22mm diameter 2 flute carbide tipped router bit I could find.
Parameters were 6mm DOC, 2mm stepover, at around 2.5m/min feed, spindle set to 20-24K RPM (haven't verified the speed yet).
This brought the total up to around 580W for the X and Y axis, and when all three were active it peaked at 620W.

The cutter is an old one that has done some thousands of metres of machining and clearing, so it was quite loaded and represented a worst case usage. A new cutter would have made a better and more efficient job of it, dropping the watts down.

So the conclusion I got was:

The machine itself at idle with the pump running is less than 100W
Slow to medium speeds moving any axis is roughly 30W per axis
Rapid moving any axis is about 40W per axis
The spindle load very surprisingly was extremely low, only an additional 400W under moderate load, and about 430-450W under moderate load cutting with all three axis.

So all up, with the axtractor, I'm running at around 1350-1500W max.

cheers, Ian

[A_Camera]

Interesting. Thank you very much. I am constantly monitoring my CNC and when it is actively working it uses about 1A, but I am using a 0.4kW DC spindle and NEMA23 3A stepper motors. My PC is not monitored through the same instrument, but I am using a laptop for my CNC, so there won't be much to monitor. Anyway, I have another desktop connected to the same circuit, and all that hardware, including the CNC and three LCD displays and some LED lamps are connected to the same UPS. Never the less, your measurements are interesting... Being an engineer, I am used to read specs, but normally my measurements match the specs a bit closer. For example, the vacuum cleaner must be actively sucking. There is one way of measuring with realistic load (sucking dust) and maximum load (sucking pipe blocked). For the VFD, milling aluminum, working hard and stalling the motor is the maximum load, but that's risky, so realistic tests, the way you did it, is interesting. It means there is a huge margin before I would reach 16A. I will have to check my vacuum cleaner though...

I know that the kettle together with the vacuum cleaner is a no-no...

[aarggh]

As with all things generally, I think it really pays to get a good dust extractor, ones that's quieter, more efficient. Just better all round and doesn't make for angry neighbours.

And using a Dust Deputy type cyclonic chamber also helps.

cheers, Ian

[Sundayforsammy]

Hi all,
I just wanted to keep you updated to what is happening with the VFD and spindle for now. I have not modified the 3040 mount yet to take the new spindle as I still need some bits to set up the water cooling. What I have done is set up the VFD settings and while I was paling with those I noticed that some of the VFD's have a spindle speed control pot on the small panel which is missing on mine. I took the little control panel to bits as can be seen in the pictures and see that the PCB has a place for a 9mm Alpha sized potentiometer. One side of the pot goes to ground while the wiper and other end go the ribbon cable connector to the main VFD unit PCB.

Has anyone added the pot to one of these VFD's and had success with it working as the spindle speed control, or are there more differences in the main PCB. I will add a pot to see if it works.



Sorry, I did rotate the picture but they still show the wrong orientation, iPhone pictures sometimes do this.

[Sundayforsammy]

I can now confirm for anyone with this same vfd as myself without the spindle control pot on the front panel, the only thing to do is solder in the 9mm alpha pot to add the spindle speed control. Works a treat.

[A_Camera]

Cool. Thanks for the information. Simple and very useful mod.

[Stigoe]

I can now confirm for anyone with this same vfd as myself without the spindle control pot on the front panel, the only thing to do is solder in the 9mm alpha pot to add the spindle speed control. Works a treat.

And the pot having a value of? 10k?