Can you explain more of what you are fighting? I have been pulling my hair out with the Interface and EMI/ground issues. Everything with the VFD is hooked up/earthed/shielded properly, but i am still fighting a few issues: 1) when hooking up the external speed control wires to the BB, i have very intermittent jogging/button response on the interface. -I have narrowed this down to the ground wire getting hooked up on the BB. I tried using the DC- terminal on my power supply but the toolhead voltages must be slightly different and did not work -I have shielded and ferrite cored this cable and nothing seems to resolve it. -i gave up on this avenue and will set my spindle speed manually and use the relay to turn the spindle on/off since no wires truly connect to the BB in this method 2) grounding of the spindle is resulting in some issues with my Z-axis stepper motor and intermittent button response on the Interface. Since everything on the Z carriage is then "earthed" there must be some feedback through the Z-stepper back to BB. -This occurs with the VFD off so it is not an emi issue. I have also proven that by just running a single wire from the spindle mount to earth has reproduced this issue with spindle cable disconnected. -button presses still seem to work rather reliably by having the rest of my hand touching the case of the Interface/BB -Not sure how to properly isolate this as you would need some sort of insulators on anything connecting the Z-stepper. I am sure I am not the only one with a VFD and the Interface, are there any other people having issues? OR are there any other people that have it set up and working as expected? What is your set up or what am I doing wrong?
Dc- on the PSU should be the same as the GND pin on the BB. At least, with Power on. (there is a reverse voltage blocking mosfet in the 24v input but with power hooked up correctly, DC- and GND should all be part of one nett) This might be a critical clue, floating grounds will create a lot of issues... Worth rechecking (keeping in mind GND and EARTH are two very seperate things. In this context GND is DC-. Earth is mains earth, should not connect to DC-) Z motor shouldnt be passing anything back, coils are isolated from the body. Assess carefully, is it the stepper, or the buttton acting weird. If it really is the stepper, may have a break inside the cable - http://support.openbuilds.com/support/home will be happy to replace the cable if it is. See if your motor symptoms matches typical docs:blackbox:faq-identify-motor-coils [OpenBuilds Documentation]
What VFD and spindle are you using? I finally solved my issues with my cheap Chinese 500w brushed spindle after trying everything else recommended. The fix involved tearing into the included 100vdc PWM power supply and replacing a few components.
I've got wierd problems with EMI and probing to be specific. When the vfd is plugged in and blinking (not running) and I try to run a probing sequence I get an error (nothing noted specifically, I haven't bothered to write it down) but as soon as I unplug the vfd and run the sequence again, it probes just fine. I've troubleshot the heck out of this thing - plugging the bb and vfd into different circuits, spreading the bb and vfd apart to just over 5 feet with the bb on the side of my machine bench in an attempt to 'interrupt' the interference, running the spindle wire from vfd over my work area to suspend it away from my machine in a stick like an aerial, I've got 3 chokes on the vfd - 2 on the run wire from vfd to spindle, 1 on power to vfd.. Nothing has seemed to work. Then I see someone in YouTube that has all their machining electronics with black box and vfd all in a computer case and I sit baffled, so I'm still trying various things while plugging and unplugging my vfd as I probe.
I bought a 110 VFD/ spindle combo off ebay. My machine was on a back porch and I only had access to 110v at the time until we decided to buy a house. I have 220 in my shop now but I'm sticking with 110 until it dies, then I'll revisit the spindle situation. Or I might get the spindle that openbuilds has, my current one is er11 so I wouldn't have to change much since my vfd speed is hand operated (no idea how you guys hook up the 0-10v thing to operate by program)
I have checked continuity of all 4 wires to the chassis of the Z carriage and there is nothing there. I just find it odd that everything seems to work fine without my Z stepper plugged in, then once it is plugged in, the button response goes haywire. This occurs when the spindle cable plugged in and the VFD is off. If I unplug either the sindle cable or the stepper, it works fine. I have noticed a 60mV difference between the "toolhead" ground and the DC ground coming into the BB. I dont think that should be enough to cause any issues, but anything is possible at this point.
You don't happen to have any of the shield cables grounded on both sides, do you? If so, it could cause ground loop interference.
Seen that before, Ground loop triggering probe. AC EARTH accidentally connected to DC GND. Read through XYZ Probe Plus with VFDs and other ground-loop inducing components most importantly: find what shorts DC GND to AC EARTH and remove it. It can literally kill you All that nasty EMI in the AC earth is thus also coupled into what should be clean DC GND. See why all the pain
I have the YL-620 VFD and a 1.5kW spindle. I just re-wired my cable today to only have the shield grounded at the VFD. I dont have any continuity that i can tell between the spindle housing and anything on the DC circuit. But when i just simply plug in my spindle (everything off) I get intermittent response out of the Interface controller. I have some work around for now and I can manage, just would like to find a robust solution to get everything to work as intended.
@JSuster I moved the posts together for Skip’s issue to get it out of the Interface thread, after identifying his root cause
Well.. you really know how to make all that sound..... fun? Lol I'll have to look through the link and find out what it all means. I followed some jinky 'tutorial' that explained that I had to solder some wire to the inside of the spindle post but that was essentially it. There were warnings of how it could be a live casing etc so after I was done I turned it on, warned my wife and slapped it. Still here so I guess I did something right but apparently not right enough.
Read the link, once again way above my head. Being a filthy little end user, I'm not up on the electronics stuff so I'll try to YouTube it. The depth of explanation you guys get into is far above my knowledge level - I'm that guy you need to explain with pictures, arrows n such
That's why we have pictures of a Router an IoT on the docs. VFD spindles are crazy complicated (; a personal pet-hate of mine
It's slowly becoming one of mine as well, once this dies I'll be picking up one of your router spindles if/when they become available. Less complication and it's not like I need all the horsepower, I'll only ever cut wood or plastic.
I had the same problem with dc/earth ground. And found it to be the USB cable connecting DC- to earth at the computer. I added a small devices to isolate it and the problem went away. But man, took me a few calls and life lines to figure it out.
