I got my SP5 a couple weeks ago and it works fine. It initializes and runs good. I have it drawing fine with a sharpie.
The VFD arrived yesterday. After I installed it I could not get it to recognize the “M3 S10000” from the MDI in carbide motion. The red light is illuminated on the controller. I can manually turn on the VFD through the controller and it will spin at ~8k rpm. After I hit the run “green” button on the VFD and it is spinning, it will respond to M3 speed change commands. The speed commanded roughly matches on the controller. However, it will never go below 8k rpm or respond to M5. I will have to manually hit stop on the VFD panel to stop the spindle.
Is this the intended operation of the VFD? I expected it to turn on and off from carbide motion as I interpreted from the installation instructions.
During your configuration you tell the Shapeoko (CM) that you have a VFD. Then in CC you use the Shapeoko Post processor and the VFD should start/stop and set the speed from the .c2d file and/or the gcode file.
I have done both of those things. I am still unable to command the vfd to start or stop. The green button on the vfd controller still needs to be pressed to start the spindle.
When sending a M3S10000 cmd through mdi the vfd screen reads 157.5. When I press the green button then send the command again I get something in the ballpark of 8k rpm on the screen but m5 won’t turn off the spindle, the red button needs to be pressed.
I have been running projects all day. They work fine, the speeds are correct, I just need to manually press the green and red buttons to start/stop the spindle.
It’s weird that everything works except start/stop. I feel like I’m doing something wrong.
Just tried the “/M3 S15000” command and it took the vfd display to about 230. But the spindle did not turn on. M5 brought it back to zero, but no physical change in the spindle.
If you originally configured CM 635 with the Compact Router and BitRunner locate the Carbide 3D folder. In it you’ll find a CarbideMotion6 folder, rename it to something like CarbideMotion6635. Carbide Motion 636 will build a new CarbideMotion6 folder when its configured instead of over writing the contents of the original Carbide Motion6 folder.
I ran into problems switching back and forth between the spindle and a router configuration and this step was the fix.
One other thing, the red and green buttons shouldn’t anything from what I’ve seen. The fact that they do kinda makes me wonder if the programming wasn’t complete. I’d definitely run that by support.
I did all the things you recommended, no dice. Still has the same behavior. I have reached out to support let’s see what they say. At least I can still use the machine, just some of the features aren’t there.
Quick update for anyone following along. Support asked for me to ship the vfd controller back to them. Should arrive this week and we will see what comes if it.
