Carbide’s VFD spindle, like many others, uses a large 4-pin aviation connector to connect the spindle to the cable. I have the Carbide version, but I recently also gained a non-Carbide spindle (externally almost identical, very similar parameters) from a friend who was moving over to a 220V water-cooled type and no longer needed it. We thought this might be a useful spare. However, I wanted to make sure that the wiring was compatible before storing it, in case of problems. I also wanted to check that the housing was grounded, since there have been reports of non-grounded ones.
Checking with a resistance meter, both have the ground connection on pin 4 (good so far). What is NOT good though, is that the aviation plug on the Carbide cable/spindle uses a numbering system that differs from any other I’ve seen in the past. Most of these connectors number sequentially 1-2-3-4 (clockwise from the notch, looking at the pin end).
Carbide’s plug numbers reading the same way are 1-3-4-2. That places the ground pin in a totally different position. Beware!
