Jayson
Sun 12 April 2009, 06:12
A brief update on what’s been happening here.
I spent some time fabricating a pen holder so that I could draw some cross's in the corners of the machine, the purpose being to square it all up. I could have just followed Gerald’s squaring directions but where would be the fun in that :). After a few hours of fabricating and cross drawing the machine is now .5 mm out of square (it was 5mm out to start with :o ) I will spend some more time on this soon to get it better I just cant live with it the way it is :rolleyes: .
Oh and the postman delivered this last week...
4365
The spending never stops. I have hooked it all up temporarily to test it works and also to do initial setup. As others have found it is important to set the motor parameters into the VFD before trying to make the spindle turn. Failing to do this may result in damage to the spindle and/or VFD.
Some may notice the white tape on the collet nut. This is a target for my optical tacho so that I can confirm the VFD if displaying the correct RPM. An interesting observation for those of you without a tacho. Here in Australia our mains power is 240 volts at 50 Hz (it's the 50 Hz that's important). Fluorescent lighting "flickers" at a rate of 50Hz here so if you have a target stuck onto the nut it will appear stationary at 50Hz or 3000 rpm and at multiples of 50 so 100 Hz is 6000rpm with the same result (100Hz x 60 seconds = 6000 RPM). Just some more useless information. This little fact also means that to use my optical tacho I need to turn off the shed lights and turn on a torch otherwise the tacho just reads 3000 rpm no matter where you point it. I am surprised that in the dark the VFD didn't end up in the bucket of water on the floor under it. I guess you have to be lucky some times.
I have to order some aluminium during the week to make the mounting brackets so at present I have only been doing bench testing. I may have to look at getting a different pump as it does not seem capable enough. It is rated at 12 litres per minute but once restricted to the smaller size tubing (only restricted once it gets to the spindle) it is only passing 250 to 300 ml/min. This still seems to be plenty for testing and very well may be enough when running but I would like to get another 100 to 200 ml/min just to be sure. All the same I will monitor the temperature of the water and the flow just to make sure things don't get out of hand.
I have noted that it looks like there have been some markings removed from the spindle, and I'm not sure why
4366
Can anyone confirm what is usually marked on the third line, is it anything important?
For those that have more knowledge on water cooled spindles than I what do you use to cool them (apart from water :rolleyes:) Do I use automotive coolant or is there something else I should be trying to procure?
That’s it...
'till next time.
Jayson.
I spent some time fabricating a pen holder so that I could draw some cross's in the corners of the machine, the purpose being to square it all up. I could have just followed Gerald’s squaring directions but where would be the fun in that :). After a few hours of fabricating and cross drawing the machine is now .5 mm out of square (it was 5mm out to start with :o ) I will spend some more time on this soon to get it better I just cant live with it the way it is :rolleyes: .
Oh and the postman delivered this last week...
4365
The spending never stops. I have hooked it all up temporarily to test it works and also to do initial setup. As others have found it is important to set the motor parameters into the VFD before trying to make the spindle turn. Failing to do this may result in damage to the spindle and/or VFD.
Some may notice the white tape on the collet nut. This is a target for my optical tacho so that I can confirm the VFD if displaying the correct RPM. An interesting observation for those of you without a tacho. Here in Australia our mains power is 240 volts at 50 Hz (it's the 50 Hz that's important). Fluorescent lighting "flickers" at a rate of 50Hz here so if you have a target stuck onto the nut it will appear stationary at 50Hz or 3000 rpm and at multiples of 50 so 100 Hz is 6000rpm with the same result (100Hz x 60 seconds = 6000 RPM). Just some more useless information. This little fact also means that to use my optical tacho I need to turn off the shed lights and turn on a torch otherwise the tacho just reads 3000 rpm no matter where you point it. I am surprised that in the dark the VFD didn't end up in the bucket of water on the floor under it. I guess you have to be lucky some times.
I have to order some aluminium during the week to make the mounting brackets so at present I have only been doing bench testing. I may have to look at getting a different pump as it does not seem capable enough. It is rated at 12 litres per minute but once restricted to the smaller size tubing (only restricted once it gets to the spindle) it is only passing 250 to 300 ml/min. This still seems to be plenty for testing and very well may be enough when running but I would like to get another 100 to 200 ml/min just to be sure. All the same I will monitor the temperature of the water and the flow just to make sure things don't get out of hand.
I have noted that it looks like there have been some markings removed from the spindle, and I'm not sure why
4366
Can anyone confirm what is usually marked on the third line, is it anything important?
For those that have more knowledge on water cooled spindles than I what do you use to cool them (apart from water :rolleyes:) Do I use automotive coolant or is there something else I should be trying to procure?
That’s it...
'till next time.
Jayson.