[chrischalmers]

Hi Everyone I'm hoping somebody can help me debug the issue I'm having getting my spindle to run or even respond at all. I have a CNC machine that was custom built using off the shelf components but there's no documentation and I've lost touch with the original builder. It has an EC300 ethernet controller, a BEST Fc300-4.0g-s2-b4c VFD and a GDZ105x102-3.5 spindle. Images of the setup follow:

https://prnt.sc/ZOWcfIdOFYVI
https://prnt.sc/BpKPM0PuorDI
https://prnt.sc/OGejde6PB3BX

I've got Mach-3 communicating with the EC300 board over ethernet and have configured my X Y and Z steppers, limit switches and e-stop without issue. Now I am trying without success to turn on the spindle. I don't know if I just have the wrong settings in Mach-3 or if there's some larger problem.

In Mach-3, I have configured the motor outputs, motor signals, spindle setup and Motor tuning according to lots and lots of youtube videos but I'm really just shooting in the dark here. What I need is a step by step guide to discover the correct settings for all these parameters.

https://prnt.sc/emK1VUmAXUGD
https://prnt.sc/VnTC8vIvp45v
https://prnt.sc/eh29fO8VSSkE
https://prnt.sc/m9JCQ625u10h
https://prnt.sc/jNo7vsv13lTU

Also i don't know if I need to do anything to the settings on the VFD itself or if the EC300 board overrides any settings made there, as the VFD manual suggests.
I have a simple multi meter that I could test output voltage with but no oscilloscope.
Please point me in the right direction for troubleshooting and or list off some steps I can take to configure.

Thanks!!

[chrischalmers]

I did some testing and narrowed things down a little bit: Hopefully some of you might be able to chime in at this point with ideas or direction.

Please see attached photos: inside CNC Box shows the overall setup; EC300-spindle-piins and VFD-input-pins are self explanatory and the two manual excerpts show the suggested wiring. the yellow/green wire is a yellow wire with green shrink tube to designate it.

The EC300 board has three output pins under the "spindle" section. These are GND - blue, VSO - yellow/green and OT1 - yellow
The wires from these are connected to three inputs on the VFD, respectively: COM - blue, AVI - , yellow/green and X5 - yellow

According to the Manuals (excerpts attached) the AVI pin on the VFD expects a variable voltage between 0 and 10 volts while the X5 pin should be open to GND.

1. My first test was to see if there was any output from the EC300 board going to the VFD. I put a volt meter between GND and VSO on the EC300 and turned on the spindle with Mach-3 - no voltage there.

2. My second test was to send 9v to the AVI pin on the VFD using a 9v battery. I also connected the negative terminal of the battery to both COM and X5. - This worked! the spindle turned! I only did it for a short time a second at most.

All this suggests that the VFD is working fine and is configured correctly and that it's Mach-3 that is not sending a signal correctly to the EC300 board, or possibly it's a problem with the board. However the XY and Z steppers are also going through the EC300 and they work fine.

Can anybody point me in the right direction for configuring Mach-3 to send the proper signal to the EC300 board for the spindle? I have variously: Spindle settings Motor outputs and output settings under ports&pins and also, spindle pulley settings. I don't know which or any of these are off. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance,
Chris

[chrischalmers]

SOLVED! In case it helps anyone who came across this same problem with the EC 300 Digital dream controller by Novusunn**: I finally worked it out with the help of Elevate CNC here in Idaho https://elevatecnc.com/.

**An aside, this was made more difficult because Mach3 refuses to offer support to anyone using Novusunnproducts because of some issue the two companies have over license piracy :P see https://www.machsupport.com/forum/in...?topic=24331.0

The problem was that I simply had not stumbled across the correct port/pin configuration. Here are the configs for my particular setup. I hope if you have the same setup they will work for you. I don't know why the EC300 documentation doesn't ever mention these settings anywhere. Another thing I noticed: I have my spindle speed set as 12000min 18000max. When I start up Mach3 it's automatically set at the min. I have to bump up the spindle speed manually to get it to work - almost as if it won't register when set at exactly the min value. It has to be like 12001 to turn on.