Sending Support a Question, Got a Lame Answer

Unsupported
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Just like it says, I sent support a question about the electronics on the Pro 5.
My email to Support and the Reply to me is as follows. Maybe someone here can answer:

My email:

Good morning,
1st of all, I love this machine!
2nd, I am now getting ready to make my machine more permanent.
Wiring and positions of the Control Unit and VFD.

I am wanting to use toggles switches to turn on and off everything on the system,
INSTEAD of using the on/off switches on each unit (VFD and Control Unit).

I got to thinking, You would never do this to a Personal Computer. It can damage it over time doing this continuously.
However, the E-Stop Button, that is wired directly to the Control Unit does exactly this, removes power instantly.
I would think my wiring would be OK because the E-Stop does this, but I have to ask, I want to make sure.

My question:
Wiring the VFD and Control Unit this way, will it harm or damage these units?

I have attached a simple wiring diagram (.PNG) so you can see exactly how I am wanting to do this.

Happy Friday!!
…END…
Supports Reply:

The e-stop will not turn the VFD power off. Personally I power off at each controller at the end of my day and power up at them at the beginning of the day. Just as I would with my table saw or any other power tool.

You are free to choose how you want to handle that.

Thank you
…END…

The only things that was removed was names.
I feel his reply was very lame, annoying my question.
However, I was corrected about the E-stop.
I’ll just take his answer with a grain of salt and let it go.
But my question didn’t answered.

Has anyone here wired their machines this way?
Will it damage any of the electronics?
Attached here is the same .PNG I sent support. Just a simple wiring diagram.

CNC Wiring
CNC Wiring2901Ă—1721 132 KB

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There has been a bit of discussion of e-stops here on the forum:

https://community.carbide3d.com/search?q=e-stop

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My question has nothing to do with the e - stop

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Happy Friday, and I don’t understand your question, @The-Real-Thing.

Do your VFD and control box have physical power switches? How could having a switched power outlet be any different than using those switches? estop is an emergency thing, used while the machine is actively running a job with the spindle turning. I assume that you would wait until the end of a run to switch off the outlets with your external switches, so that would seem to me to not be any different than reaching around and using the physical switches built into the units…

I think that you might have obscured your actual question by talking about estops and PC’s and such when those are irrelevant to your actual question…

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Yes, but powering things on-and-off is what an e-stop does, so the discussion in that touches on, and should inform the setup of panels which you wish to make.

I used an old under monitor surge protector which had individual switches for each component, but I’ve never had a VFD — I’ve encountered some discussions where there are implications for turning off the power to a VFD spindle, so no idea on how that should be handled.

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Both my Tormach mill and self-CNC-converted Feeler 2d-op lathe had VFD’s (in the case of the Feeler, I just used the VFD to synthesize 208V three-phase from the 120V single-phase mains supply). They both had big red estop buttons that de-energized the main contactor and physically interrupted power to the machine while it was running. Not a routine thing to do, but I was thankful for the capacity when it was needed.

But both also had regular power switches for routine turning on and shutting off, that I would never think of actuating while the machine was running. When I switched off mains power to the machines, the VFD’s were in standby mode. Even PC’s with “soft” power switches have physical power buttons so it cannot be something that hurts the circuitry…

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I expect this is probably fine.

I also expect you would be hard pressed to find ~any vendor that would outright say this is probably fine.

As with most things that relate to electrical (in my experience), the onus is probably on you to evaluate feasibility of your own non-standard setup :man_shrugging:

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I was only comparing the E stop to instantly turning off power in an Emergency.
But according to support, THAT is not what happens when you hit the E stop.
I think Support was doing Just that, covering their behinds so they could not be liable for THAT Support advise
Also, I would never turn the power of in the middle of a machine run, that would be just dumb.
I was just curious if my idea of wiring would damage VFD or Machine Control unit.
Now, I don’t think I’ll do that now. I’m not an electronic kinda guy.
I don’t want to trash my machine.

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Well its ironic to complain about Support response when posting in the Unsupported category.

Not an electrician but compare your request to doing multi-component HiFi setups.

This how the question comes off. You want to plugin the the VFD and machine controllers to outlets controlled by switches. Then use those switches - NOT the switches on the devices - to turn them on and off. To work that way the device power switches must be left at ON at all times. These devices ought to have soft start circuits to not damage components from sudden voltage and current change. The drawing would bypass that it could shorten lifespan. Same turning it off is like equivalent of pulling the plug or tripping a breaker no graceful shutdown.

So its like when a customer wants one switch on the wall to turn on a five figure home theatre system all at once.

About support replies… Ive had similar experience. Don’t expect a Mr Adams caliber detailed reply. My advice keep questions under 2 sentences.

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The post was moved here from Shapeoko 5 Pro I believe.

My formal electronics training topped out at Radio Fun. when I was in the service, so really can’t help here — all I do is connect and use stuff per instructions and occasionally (poorly) solder obviously broken connections.

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roger I missed that it wasn’t posted here at first

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I have my 4x4 set up in such a way that it’s hard to reach the switches at the back of the machine. I’ve been using WiFi-enabled plugs to turn on my power and VFD for over a year now with no issues. Maybe I’ve been lucky?

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My VFD is hard to reach as well but the breaker panel is convenient so I just trip the breaker.

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There’s an older post about this which quotes the Manual. Doesn’t explain why:
“Always press the Spindle Enable button to disable the spindle and flip the power switch on the side of the VFD controller to turn it off when done cutting”

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15

I would offer my .02 cents worth, but they stopped making pennies so here is a nickles worth of consideration.
To use a quick disconnect/toggle switch for your cnc might not be a good idea.
If the switch is wired before the power supply like in your diagram, when you set your toggle switch to off, the power brick still has residual charge and will take a short moment to dissipate. That may result in the control board briefly receiving less power than it is set up for and may cause damage during the dissipation.
As to the spindle, in my experience with my spindle, when I turn the spindle off the driver ramps the pulse width down until the spindle is stopped. With an added toggle switch like in your diagram you would be bypassing that ramping phase and may turn your spindle into a mini generator feeding back into your spindle controller, again, not good.

The short of it, it might work for a while but possibly bad in the long term.

I am not an electrician, designer or engineer. Just a little tinkering around from time to time.
Just offering my mindless thoughts on the question.

:thinking:
Mindless

3 Likes