I wouldn't settle for anything less than 1000ppr quad encoders. The ones that came with my CVM-1 were complete garbage. Unless yours is significantly newer than mine you should expect to replace them.

 2hp VFD....is your spindle motor only 2hp? Mine is 3HP and the 3HP VFD I have isn't adequate to stop the motor when the spindle is going any faster than 2k RPM (it over-current faults). I mostly blame it on the garbage Hyunyang VFD I'm running. It doesn't have the circuitry installed for an external braking resistor. I'm going to upgrade in a couple weeks to an Automation Direct 3hp VFD with the braking circuit installed. This should help significantly. You might consider returning the Pendant you got from CNC4PC in favor of a USB based on from vistacnc.com. I have two of those units and they are amazing and dead simple to set up.

Good luck.

I can't read the HP on the nameplate. Searched and a 6A 220V 3ph motor is only 1.5 hp. I hope I am not wrong. I may have to use it for the Bridgeport if I am.


I don't know about the difference in encoders. I have 4 wires and it says HEDS-5500-A06. I searched and the Emerson ones with that PN look different than mine. Mine have a round enclosure and threaded for 3/4" cable connector. I am not against getting what I really need. Just don't want to replace something that will work as is. On work comp right now so funds are tight but time is abundant. Still limited use of the arm but that isn't holding me back too much. I just get tired pretty quick using it and certain positions can give me a fit.

Santa in the brown truck dropped off some electronics today. I called the VFD MFG and he said that I have the right VFD for this motor. That was a small load off my mind. Hope the rest comes tomorrow so my weekend warriors and I can work on the panel.

OMG! When life throws a curve it really does throw a good one. Got new shop and FINALLY getting back to this now with 7 year NOS. LOL
Powered up the LV side a few days ago and can't get the computer to talk to the ESS yet. GOing to delete and reinstall all software and try again.

Well I have able to jog with Mach4 and a different computer.
One issue with Mach is a little more than half the time I restart I have to go back in the ESS plugin Output and enable the charge pump. Kind of annoying being I have to restart so much to configure everything.

I am having trouble tuning the drives, just can't get anything to work on the graph as it says it should look. The motors run fine it seems. I have over 100 hrs trying to tune these things with no luck. CNC4PC recommendations start the motor running and won't stop. I have to turn off control power then control alt delete to end servoconfig. I have to increase the steps to move to 20000 to get to see the top of the graph. Anythng less wont see the top and one motor wont even run at that setting for the test.

I should of bought a whole turn key setup with motors. I got bad advice that this was going to be easy even a caveman like myself could do it. LOL
I certainly thought I would be making parts well before this.

FINALLY got it working well, all but the Pendant. Got the EStop to work on it but didn't get the rest configured yet.
Movement is repeatable to the tenth. X-12", Y-9", Z-7".
Had to put 3ph EMI filter on output of the VFD to get rid of spindle noise. I didn't use a shielded cable to the spindle.

THEN MACH4 CRASHES AGAIN!!! No doubt compatibility issues with CNC4PC ESS file and mach4 versions. Even built another computer. I've tried EVERY combo, I'm done with MACH with this old hardware.

Removed all the CNC4PC hardware and built a Acorn system from Arturo. All is good and solid once we figured out I had a bad C86 CNC4PC board. Had it all tuned and running in a day.
Been struggling with the other system for over 2 months 14/7!
Over $1000 of hardware not used anymore but I got no issues and it cost $400 for the cure.