Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: gene8522 on September 06, 2013, 01:35:38 PM
-
On my DIY CNC I installed a Chinese Huanyang VFD & Spindle that I bought on ebay back in late December. I also have the plug-in that controls the VFD with Mach3. I will say that everything was working well. I really enjoyed the low noise from the water cooled spindle.
Now here is the problem. Two almost three weeks ago the spindle stopped working and the vfd display showed "dL", which indicates a current leak somewhere in the spindle motor. I bought the vfd & spindle from "world-etrade" on ebay. I looked back at their ebay listing and saw that there is a two year warranty. No problem, right. No, you would be wrong. I contacted "world-etrade" and ask about getting a new spindle covered under their warranty. After several responses on ebay back and forth they have not replaced the spindle and will no longer correspond with me about a replacement spindle.
I had no chose but to get another spindle. I found that I could get the vfd & spindle for not much more than just the spindle alone. So I ordered a new vfd & spindle motor from "eling-export" and had it within a few days. I was back up and running. Not so fast................ I hooked up the vfd & spindle in manual control to test everything out. The spindle started coming up to speed when smoke started coming out it. The vfd shut down with the "dL" showing on the display. I contacted "eling-export" about replacing the faulty spindle motor under their three year warranty. After answering a lot of stupid questions and sending them photos of the wiring from the vfd to the spindle. And explaining to them that my power supply to the vfd is 220 volt, single phase, not 220V, 2 phase or 3 phase we are at a dead end. As of now they have not send me an RMA# nor an address to where I can send the spindle for replacement or refund. This is what their ebay listing says: “satisfaction guaranteed,return accepted without asking for a reason, fully refund or exchange will be give upon our receiving the returned item.item must be returned in mint state with original packing,please notify us and with our confirmation before you want to return anything.”
I have contacted ebay customer support with my problem with “eling-export”. They say that they can help with “eling-export” and get my cost and shipping returned, but that there may not be anything they can do about “world-etrade” since it has been over six months.
Right now I’m not sure what to do, but to warn ever one about these cheap Chinese spindles. And I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet ($$$$) and get better quality VFD & spindle.
Beware and watch out these sites >:( >:(
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221254712652&ssPageName=ADME:X:eRTM:US:1123
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330686649633&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123
-
Not trying to defend chinese products but you have two drives and motors that failed the same way. I have the same setup... 2.2kw water cooled and VFD and mine runs fine. I have a load reactor on the 3 phase output to the motor for impedance matching and to prevent voltage spiking due to motor cable capacitance. Spiking can break down the motor winding insulation and short out. I use shielded VFD drive cable and properly ground the shield and motor.... again using regular wire like SJO (extension cord cable) can result in motor winding damage. The drive has to setup to match the motor operating parameters or it can damage both motor and drive fairly quickly. Chinese products are low quality especially the VFD's... but having two fail the same way is suspicious.
-
I suspect that you are doing something wrong. 2 in a row is unusual. Got my spindle from www.buildyourcnc.com in Katy, TX. Good folks and stand behind product. I am using 16/4 SJO for cable between VFD and spindle. You need at least #18 wire but I always up one gauge when the wire is constantly in motion.
-
Here is an up date on the spindle motors problem. "world-etrade" The ebay company that I bought my first vfd & spindle from has agreed to replace the spindle if I would return the defective spindle to them. The good news is I only have to ship the spindle to their warehouse in California ( $23.83 from Texas ), tracking shows that the spindle should be in California Monday. Now lets see if "world-etrade" sends me a replacement spindle. Please let everyone know that "world-etrade" on ebay appears to be good on their warranty, it just takes a while for them to do anything.
Now there is the matter of dealing with "eling-export" on ebay. After 24 corespondents with "eling-exports" via ebay and answering every stupid question in the book. They even ask if the input power supply to the vfd is "2 phase or 3 phase". I told them I am using 220 volt 'single' phase and that I had never seen "2 phase" used in this country. Way before my time. They even ask for a YouTube video of the vfd & Spindle in action. I don't have a video camera, but I did send about 10 photos. So with my frustration running off the high end of the scale. I contacted PayPal 'Resolution Center'. PayPal opened a case against "eling-export" and said they will return the money for the vfd/spindle to my account, but I have only 10 days to return the spindle to "eling-export" in Guangzhou Guangdong Province, China. I am going to ask PayPal if I should have to pay the return shipping to China, after all I was sent a defective vdf/spindle. The problem is when I tried to print out a UPS shipping label it says that the 'post code' is incorrect.
I'll post an update to this as I know more.
-
I suspect that you are doing something wrong. 2 in a row is unusual. Got my spindle from www.buildyourcnc.com in Katy, TX. Good folks and stand behind product. I am using 16/4 SJO for cable between VFD and spindle. You need at least #18 wire but I always up one gauge when the wire is constantly in motion.
You are quite right about Daniel Hood over @ 'buildyourcnc'. My diy cnc is a copy of the "Blacktoe" and I bought all if the electronics and some of the parts from Daniel.
Right now I'm using #18 shielded wire, is the 16/4 SJO shielded? If so where did you find it?
-
You should use at least #14 shielded and only ground the shield at the VFD. SJO is not designed for VFD use... Soigenneris sells shielded VFD cable its not cheap but nether is replacing two drives and motors. VFD's create allot of RF noise especially the chinese knock-off's. They lack the internal RF filtering found in more expensive VFD's. Without the proper cable the t-leads become radio transmitters. Cable capacitance in VFD outputs is another problem... it can cause reflected power, more so on motor deaccel back to the drive and destroy the output section of the drive.
-
Sorry that you have had problems with two of these spindles, I have two of these Chinese spindle motors and VFD's one 2.2Kw water cooled motor which has done some 500 hours now without one problem and a 4Kw air cooled motor which has around 250 hours again no problems they are very quiet which is why I bought them and at a good price off of Ebay and I know of others who have these motors and have not had any problems so I think that you have been very unlucky with your purchases, do hope that you manage to get your money or replacements sorted out.
Alan
-
Gene8522 wouldn't be the first person to get stuck with Chinese junk. I consider any vendor warranty on Ebay as empty promises especially from China... buy at your own risk.
However... I don't think defective equipment has anything to do with his problem. It's highly unusual to have two motors and/or drives from two different vendors fail exactly the same way. Not to bash Gene8522 but this problem sounds more like a improper drive setup or wiring issue.
I found my drive set for factory defaulted values and must be configured for the drive input voltage, motor FLA, max rpm's and frequency, etc. A misconfigured drive can quickly short a motor winding. The manual that comes with the drive leaves allot to be desired for specifics.... unless you have a background in VFD's or the drive is sent with setup instructions its very easy to skip parameters.
Gene8522 didn't say if its a 2.2kw or 1.5kw. I have a Ebay 2.2kw water cooled motor and Huanyang drive with 450+ hours on the clock. Unless its running at high amps the motor just gets warm even without the cooling pump.
The 2.2kw drive can output 11 amps @ 400hz BUT the 2.2kw motor is rated for 8.5 FLA @ 400hz. The drive has to be set to current limit at 8.5 amps. The factory default is 11 amps. The 1.5kw motors is rated at 8 amps FLA and a 1.5kw drive will only output 7 amps so there is very little chance of an over current situation.
-
YEP IF the VFD parameters are NOT correct for the motor you CAN blow the final drive out of the drive and burn out the motor. Also the regenerative voltages can bite you in the behind if NOT set correctly.
Very easy to let the magic smoke out with VFDs if not set correctly.
(;-) TP
-
These drives are low end quality at best. A Siemens 440 or Toshiba G9, 2.2kw VFD sells for 3x the price... there is a reason for that.
My Huanyang drive was sent with setup instruction written is bad engilsh from the vendor. The instructions were wrong. If I had followed them I would have destroyed the drive and possibly the motor too. I suspect this maybe Gene8522's problem. I wrote to the vendor stating the setup instructions were wrong... never heard for them.
The Huanyang manual wasn't much better but was able to determine the correct parameter settings only because I work on VFD and DC drives as a profession.
-
Gene8522 wouldn't be the first person to get stuck with Chinese junk. I consider any vendor warranty on Ebay as empty promises especially from China... buy at your own risk.
However... I don't think defective equipment has anything to do with his problem. It's highly unusual to have two motors and/or drives from two different vendors fail exactly the same way. Not to bash Gene8522 but this problem sounds more like a improper drive setup or wiring issue.
I found my drive set for factory defaulted values and must be configured for the drive input voltage, motor FLA, max rpm's and frequency, etc. A misconfigured drive can quickly short a motor winding. The manual that comes with the drive leaves allot to be desired for specifics.... unless you have a background in VFD's or the drive is sent with setup instructions its very easy to skip parameters.
Gene8522 didn't say if its a 2.2kw or 1.5kw. I have a Ebay 2.2kw water cooled motor and Huanyang drive with 450+ hours on the clock. Unless its running at high amps the motor just gets warm even without the cooling pump.
The 2.2kw drive can output 11 amps @ 400hz BUT the 2.2kw motor is rated for 8.5 FLA @ 400hz. The drive has to be set to current limit at 8.5 amps. The factory default is 11 amps. The 1.5kw motors is rated at 8 amps FLA and a 1.5kw drive will only output 7 amps so there is very little chance of an over current situation.
My spindles were both 2.2KW water cooled. The first one had run sense January with out any problems before it gave up the ghost and died. The second vfd & spindle I was only able to run for about 5 seconds on a test run. I hooked up the spindle without hooking the PC to the vfd just to test the vfd/spindle running it manually . I did a PD013 to reset the factory settings, then went went through the PD001 to PD006 & PD141 to PD144. I used the manual start to start the spindle, and when the RPMs went up to about 13-14K I stopped the spindle. When I looked around there was smoke coming the spindle as the spindle was slowing down. WOW what happen. The vfd was showing "dL". Man not again!! I started checking all of the PD code# setting looking for a problem. geh7552 is right when I looked at the amp. output again at PD142 it was set at 11 amps. Then I seemed to recall the first spindle was set at 8.5 amps. But it was too late the spindle would start but only run for one or two seconds then shut down on "dL" read out. I'm sure that the "Factory" setting for the vfd bit me in the a** and fried a phase in the spindle. When I tried the test run it was late and I was already frustrated with the other vfd/spindle that I over looked the amp setting @ PD142 and did not change them. Hard way to learn, being an "Amateur" >:( :-\
-
Gene8522,
I do not have a problem with using SJO 16/4. The important thing is to USE all 4 conductors and send the green wire back to the bonded ground in the power distribution box. It should absorb most of the RF generated by the 3-phase. Air separation between control wiring and the VFD wiring is important as well. DO NOT run them in the same cable chase as convenient as it may be. I got my 16/4 at Bay Electric in League City. You will not find it at your local home center. So many people use 3-conductor wiring and that is what causes problems. The green wire is important otherwise there would not be a 4th terminal on the spindle.
I live in Santa Fe. If you are close enough I may be able to put some fingerprints on your machine and try to solve your problems.
Bob
-
The VFD output carrier frequency (PD041) is factory set for 7KHZ which turned the motor leads into a radio transmitter that can cause flaky problems with stepper electronics. The Some people have issues some don't. I don't recommend using unshielded motor leads. SJO 16/4 is not shielded. Use VFD 4 conductor shielded cable... ground the motor and drive with the green lead and the shielding at the drive only.
Make sure PD003 through PD 005 are set for 400 (hz)
-
Gene8522,
The green wire is important otherwise there would not be a 4th terminal on the spindle.
Bob
When I got my spindle motor the 4 terminals were not labeled. I took an ohm meter and determined which 3 were the motor windings. In the process I discovered the 4th pin (assumed to be the motor ground) was not grounded.
I opened up the motor quick disconnect plug and sure enough... nothing connected to it. I soldered a wire onto the connector solder cup and grounded it to the motor case so now the motor has a dedicated ground conductor. So even using 4 conductor motor cable the ground would have done nothing.
The Chinese must assume the CNC frame is going to be the motor ground which is poor ground practices. All of you that use spindle motors should check the 4th pin... I would be willing to bet it's ungrounded.
-
The green wire absorbs the RF from the 3-phase.
-
The green wire absorbs the RF from the 3-phase.
I can tell you don't have an electrical background. Better read your NEC code book on proper motor ground. This is absolutely incorrect it doesn't absorb RF... maybe some but its not significant to be of any use. That's what the cable outer jacketing shielding is for. The 4th conductor on a 3 phase motor is intended as a motor ground wire.
Using the cnc frame as a VFD motor ground is poor practice that can cause issues with low voltage electronics due to circulating currents.
Do a Google search on VFD, shielded cables, proper grounding and RF noise.
-
Gene... sent you a PM.
-
UPDATE:
This is a long story, so I will try and give the Reader Digest version.
I have finally been able to get these warranty problems taken care of. I contacted "world-etrade" and told them about the problems with the spindle. It took some doing but they reluctantly sent a replacement spindle.
Now "eling-export" was a whole other nut to crack. I lost count of the communications back and forth (40+). At first "eling-export" was very reluctant to give any warranty coverage, but after I got in touch with PayPal about opening a case "eling-export" changed their attitude real fast and wanted to know if I would drop the PayPal case and change my 'feedback' at Ebay. They sent me an address in California to return the VFD/spindle, but I had to pay the shipping ($28.00). All of this sense about 8/25/2012. I returned the VFD/spindle but did not hear back from "eling-export". My tracking # showed that they had received the VFD/Spindle. After contacting "eling-export" again and threatening to reopen the case with PayPal. They ask me not to do that and that they would refund my money to PayPal and send the money for the shipping. After three days of not hearing anything this morning I received an email from PayPal that the $311.00 has been returned to my account and that $28.00 (shipping cost) has been sent to my PayPal account. I will admit that I had just about given up hope of getting my money back. Just shows that you have to be persistent and stand your ground. This morning I did change my 'feedback' in Ebay about eling-export.
-
So what did you change it to? Great people to work with! or You can get service from them if you put your knee in their back and twist their arm! They were difficult, difficult vendors should get poor feedback every time, no exceptions. Otherwise the system intended to protect you doesn't work.
-
Changed my 'feedback' to positive with "It took a while, but eling did stand behind their warrant. With a full refund+SH" remark. I sent an email to eling-export and told them The best I can say is "It has been interesting doing business with eling-export".