Instructions for fitting a 2.2kw (or other power spindle) and VFD

A colleague recently got a 800 Watt G-Penny spindle for his Shapeoko XL. He can’t get it to go faster than 20,000 RPM (50/60 * 24000 = 20000). (He’s the kind of guy that would measure speed with a tachometer.) The manual and settings imply that Huanyang uses the power line frequency as a frequency standard (rather than an oscillator).

Interesting. I’m still in the construction phase of my Shapeoko Penthouse, but will be starting on the electrical part of the install eventually. I also have a 220V G-Penny here is the US. Curious about the PD144 and the PD176. I was going to use 3600 Hz also. ??? hmmmm :thinking:

Get one of these and you’ll know for sure what your spindle is doing! Or you could go “old school” with a Strobotach. It seems that someone using one of those VFDs in the US knows and could clear this up? There seems to be quite of few users here.

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Been following this for a while now. Just broke down and ordered a 1.5kw water cooled spindle. Wanted a 2.2 but for the collet size but decided it wasn’t worth the weight.

How much heat is put off by one of these? I’m planning on running a bucket system to get it going. I do not plan on keeping it that way though. I’m just curious if a radiator is needed or if just a quart Reservoir is enough ?

A 20l reservoir shouldnbe ample to keep it around 20. Just make sure it has a lid over the bucket

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I used this for a year without any issues with my 2.2kW spindle:

image

It had 9l of antifreeze in it. 20l as Luke says will give you even more thermal margin.

EDIT: latest news is that spindles may like to stay under 35°C, and with those 9l of coolant with no active cooling it takes about 5 hours under light (but continous) load to reach that value.

side note: being from the old world I had to look-up how much a “quart” is, and google says it’s 0,946353l, is that how much a “quart reservoir” would hold ?

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I feel so inadequate running a 600ml PC cooler on my 800W spindle. :rofl:

It only felt warm even after a large job.

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Yes. That’s what a quart is

I’ve just about finished making a beefier Z axis for my machine to hold my new 1.5kw spindle. The manufacturer recommends a procedure for when you turn on the spindle of increasing the speed over a period of time. My question is do you run this warmup only once when you first turn on the spindle (as a run-in process) or every time you turn on the spindle as a warm up for cutting a project?

I’ve got a 2.2kw spindle - it ramps up to the speed setting over a short period of time (maybe 2 or 3 seconds?). You can tinker with the settings in the VFD to adjust the ramp up time to whatever you want. I’m pretty sure mine is just at the default settings - and I don’t really have a reason to change it.

There are two things:

  1. the speed ramp up time (which @3DGG mentioned), I have it set to 3 seconds, but everyone can pick a value they like.
  2. the “warm-up” of the spindle when initially turning it on for the day: I used to ignore that, but after discussing this here with folks (I’ll try and find that thread), I now have the habit of running a 10-minute spindle warm-up routine macro, that incrementally increases speed from 1000RPM to 24000RPM, staying 60seconds at each intermediate step : this will ensure that the bearings take their sweet time to heat-up, the grease to flow where it needs to flow, and more generally the spindle to reach its operating temperature, especially when it’s cold in the shop. The precision will only be better (but I would not go as far as calling it mandatory)

EDIT: Here’s the discussion I was referring to, and here’s my daily spindle warmup macro.

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The VFD microprocessor’s crystal is likely the “inverter frequency standard” for its output frequency. But, PD144 appears to be the parameter that enables it to properly display spindle speed.

Hi Dylan, I have the exact setup as you except in 240V and I could not get it to work.
The previous advice you were given might not be correct for your newer VFD with the DIP switches on the board and you were told to have P00.01 on 1. I changed mine to 0 and everything works fine now. I know it’s an old post but just thought I would share.

Hi! That is great, I never got to use the pwm function, does doing this help too?
Thanks for sharing

It works great. Start the job in Garbide motion and the spindle starts, runs at RPM you define for the job and stops and the end of the job.

Now if I could only get the dust extraction to do the same

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You’re not alone in thinking that…

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Hi Dan I would like to get a 80 mm spindel for my HDZ where did you get yours
Thanks Michel

The Carbide 3D HD 80mm mount is a formidable choice.

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This is the one I have, but there are others that someone else might recommend. I did not use the pump or the mount since I used the HDZ mount and built an enclosed cooler.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B078J5CXP3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Yep,

That’s basically the same one I have from a UK seller, the HuanYang spindle seems OK and they almost all come with a HuanYang labelled VFD.

It’s worth noting that the HuanYang spindle seems to have metal bearings rather than the preferred ceramic bearings, this suspicion is due to the shaft being grounded by the case. Some of the G Penney spindles do not conduct case to shaft and therefore may actually have ceramic bearings.

That said, there is little to choose at the running hours you’re likely to put on these spindles on a Shapeoko.