I have some 120v solenoid valves and a water pump connected to my BitRunner to turn air and mist cooling on and off when the spindle turns on and off. I want to get a VFD spindle, but I am hearing that you cannot connect the VFD and the BitRunner at the same time (or can you?) Is there a pin on the control board or in the VFD that can supply any voltage or a NO/NC contact indicating when the spindle is on?
You hear correct, VFD and BitRunner cannot be connected simultaneously. There is no additional IO pin, however with a VFD spindle (the 120V version at least) you can pair it with a current sensing switch to trigger other accessories.
See: Does the Shapeoko Pro controller have extra pins to use as gpio? - #2 by robgrz
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The automatic vacuum switch is probably a good solution if the switch will only turn on if the power draw is higher than the idle current draw when the spindle is not running.
Could you not, in theory, splice together the six signal wires for the VFD and BitRunner into one connector so both devices receive the signals?
No idea about such modifications (and if there were problems we’d ask you to undo it if you needed support).
We do have an article on this now:
https://carbide3d.com/hub/faq/controlling-a-vacuum-with-your-shapeoko/
In short, no.
Longer explanation: BitRunner uses a PWM signal from the controller at 100% duty cycle as a proxy for an on/off signal. The controller is instructed to treat any commanded RPM over 1000 as maxed out, which will turn the Bitrunner on and off.
A VFD needs the PWM signal to ramp linearly between 10k and 24k RPM. An intermediate RPM like 16000 might not trigger the BitRunner.
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That makes sense. Thank you, Winston!
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