Has anyone moved the VFD Controller to the front leg of the unit - or closer to the operator? Since Feed Hold doesn’t raise the spindle out of the workpiece, I’d like to be able to get to the VFD disable button as quickly as possible to stop the spindle from spinning - and having it located on the back-left leg is particularly difficult with my set up (there are other things to the left of the machine). It would helpful to be able to move it to the front leg, or even, around the front leg to the front of the machine.
The cables are definitely not long enough to wrap around to the front, and the direct line (if it reaches) would have to run diagonally under the leg carriage where my rolling cabinet of drawers is sitting (I wouldn’t want to accidentally catch the wire.
Has anyone made it work? Could there be an extension cord?
There is no magical solution that can be done with zero effort. But the legs are steel. You can drill, tap, and add screws to hang the VFD from anywhere there is enough material. Or for a little more flexibility create a plywood mounting plate, since the legs don’t span the gap in the middle of the machine. You can even make some sort of bracket to rotate the VFD 90 degrees to face the front. The only practical limitation is the length of the cables.
Got it. Can I assume the problem isn’t signal strength, so the cable could be longer? Any chance Carbide might sell an extra long cable (or an extension cable) that would let you attach the VFD to the front leg (which has the right holes, I believe)?
The signal from the controller to the VFD box is technically analog (PWM signal), but the cable we provide should be long enough to go from corner to corner. The limitation is the length of the heavy duty cabling going to the spindle. I’d assume our electrical engineer would not feel comfortable daisy-chaining those current carrying conductors. But you should be able to get the box most of the way to the front left corner with the existing cable.
How about relocating the VFD button instead of the whole drive enclosure? I was planning on splicing in an m12 bulk head connector at the box and double ended cord set to a remote one hole pushbutton box. I haven’t done it yet though so I don’t know if this is a practical solution or not.
If we could just come up with an extension for the spindle pause button and allow us to place the button in a location of our choice, that would be fantastic!!. A 10’ harness should be plenty, we could use an easily sourced grommet for the VFD enclosure to keep the dust out and 3D print any form of mount configuration we choose.
Even if C3D just told us the connector/cable recommendation for the extension would be a big help! My VFD is out of warranty so that liability is on me for the change anyway in my case.
I think that PwnCNC also uses Delixi VFD’s, so unless Carbide3D has defeated its “Stop” button functionality, the keypad can be remotely operated as @bcleaver shows.
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