I do not have an RS 484 port.
Attaches is a picture of the board that I have.
Will this work with the inverter?

Looks like it will work, it should be a bit tricky.

On the inputs, I've generally wired to the first and third. Make sure you're over-rated on the inputs by 2/3.

On the spindle output, you definitely should not try any form of switching between the VFD and spindle. That would break things in ugly ways.

You mentioned that you might want to place a relay there. You would place the relay so that it controlled the forward speed selector on the input to the VFD.

Looking at that board, and at https://www.manualslib.com/manual/12...page=12#manual it appears that there is a 0-10V output to control the speed. That would be wired to the corresponding input on the VFD.

You only need a serial to rs485 converter then run a serial cable from PC to the converter and the converter to the 485 on the vfd

Thank you Paul.
I will look into that.

About the earthing.
I have an earth from the machine frame to a spike in the garden.
Can I earth the VFD to the frame or should I run out a separate earth wire?

Straight to earth ground only needed if you experience EMI interference.

I got power to the VFD.
Parameters set.
Coolant pump and tank installed and working.
Probably Monday for VFD to spindle.
The fog is slowly clearing:)
RS485 on order.

Al,

Sounds good. Thanks for sharing your new venture.

VFD and spindle wired and rotating.
Onward to the next job

Awesome

Bracket modified, drilled, tapped and painted.
Z slide drilled and painted. (Yellow, sorry)
Spindle mounted.
Cable and pipes routed through energy chain.
More to do yet.

Well it works.
Under manual speed until the RS adapter arrives.
Still a few wires to tidy up.
Glad that job is done.
Taken a few years to get there.:)

Lots of information in the instruction manual but hard to understand.
It doesn't tell you how to do things, just information.

Machined some wood to thickness, will run a job tomorrow.

I would like to get Pathpilot to run but I am stuck on the pin settings.
It keeps rejecting mine.
One job at a time.

Nice!

Sorry, I have no experience with Pathpilot.

I have a problem that I need some help with.
It might be electrical noise.

Sometimes when the spindle starts or stops the Yaxis jumps.
More often it is when it stops (the very last 1/10 second).
On occasion the spindle will growl on start up

The X and Z are fine.

I put in a separate earth on the VFD, also it is on a separate circuit breaker.
The separate circuit helped but it is still not right.

I don't know what to try next.
Any ideas ?:confused:

Make sure you have RF chokes installed at the output of the VFD. VFDs are big source of RF interference. I removed RF chokes/toroid cores from some old scrap monitors. You will see them as a thick piece of plastic over the monitor supply cable or connection cable. Remove them from there and slide your wires (the one which go to the spindle). If there is a room you can winde a few turns as well. Install it at the VFD side. This should prevent RFI.

Milosh

Thanks Digger.
I found 3 of different sizes on old cables.
Put one on each of the VFD output wires.
It made no difference.:(
Will have to see if I can find bigger chokes.
Perhaps more than one per cable is needed.

If the hole is big enough, try to run some turns. More turns, more inductance. Also, it may help if you try to physically separate spindle cable from other cables.

Thanks again Digger.
I removed the spindle cable from the energy chain.
Now it works:)

No problem. Glad it worked. :)

What sort of cable are you using for your VFD to spindle? I run mine in my chain with everything else and have never had a problem. My cable is shielded VFD cable.

It is shielded and shield is grounded at vfd side.

That sounds to me like you are getting spindle noise transferred into your Y axis motor cable. If it were transferring to your limit switches, you should see that in the software effect. It might be as simple as keeping the spindle cable to one side of the echain, and the other cables to the other - a few zip ties.

The problem was that the spindle cable was not properly shielded.
Now that I have separated it from the others it works.
It will do until I can find some proper cable.
Very difficult to find around here.
The RS adapter has arrived, so more wires to play with.

Heres where I got mine from, been brilliant and no interference at all. It runs in my chain with everything else. Very cost effective too....

https://www.homanndesigns.com/index....r0u074a976a7b3

Thanks Bruce.
I have emailed them.

Is the shield attached to the spindle body
and the earth on the VFD?

Hi Al

I'll check today what I did, been getting Pathpilot 2 talking to my Mesa cards today, they decide to ignore each other!

Will report back shortly

Cheers

There is a divorce in progress.

I made this as the lyrics sum up my mood.

It is by The Who, titled "It's not enough".
It hits the nail on the head.

The film mentioned was released under an English name.
"Contempt"
Very apt.

When I was cleaning my machine today,
I noticed something.
A mistake in construction.

3 of the 4 angle stays on my Y axis were welded with the inside angle upwards.
A major dust trap.

Oh well!
MechMate, Always a surprise, never a disappointment.

Make a cap for them out of sheetmetal, plastic or cardboard

Thanks for the suggestion Mike.
It will have to wait.

I need to get out of here next year.
The machine will be moved.

The big problem is the base.
It cannot be moved intact from where it is now.
Either I leave it and make a new one. or cut off the 4 X axis beams and make new ones.

Always something to think about:confused:

Hello all.
It has been a while since I was last on here.
The last 4 years have been hard.

I had to disassemble my machine and move to a new location.
I have a few problems that I could use some advice on

The machine cuts out shortly after starting.
I feel that it is a computer problem, it must be 20 years old.
Parallel port and all that old technology.

I am thinking of using a Raspberry pi with Linux.
Any ideas about what I would need?
Control board, drives
I read somewhere about Acorn Clearpath and Leadshine self tuning motors.
Hopefully I will have some spare funds in a couple of months.

Any advice welcome.