[Tony344]

Hi guys,

I am completely new to the CNC thing. Hope you can help me out with a problem I am having?

Just recently purchased a 6040 router/mill from an ebay seller. It came with a HY01D523B VFD & a GDZ-65-800 water cooled spindle.

I got the table up and running with no issues. But when running Mach3 (in demo mode), as soon as I start spindle rotation, the external EStop command is triggered. I tried changing the debounce setting in Mach3 from 0 to up to 10000, but all that meant was it took longer for the fault to occur (obviously it is a constant signal).

The spindle supply cable is not shielded (as supplied), so I thought it may be introducing noise into the system. So I removed the cable from the cable snake and ran it separately, but same issue. Then rans a separate ground cable from the spindle mount to the VFD. Still the same result. If I remove the spindle from the machine, I can run it with no issues (spindle running), I can also lay the cable all over the other cables with no issue.But as soon as I touch the casing of the spindle to the machine, the external e-stop is triggered. There is no connection between the VFD and the breakout box (ie no spindle control other than the VFD).

This is the machine I got:
CNC 6040 ROUTER ENGRAVER DRILLING / MILLING MACHINE c6 | eBay The VFD is different to the one pictured, but everything else is the same.

Ideas guys please? I am stuck with a non-functioning machine at the moment (a very expensive paperweight).

[Tony344]

Also did another test with the spindle out of the machine. There was a potential of 60V AC between the table and the spindle on powerup of the VFD and at full RPM the potential difference was 150V AC (both measured with a multimeter). I opened the control box (contains the stepper control cards and the parallel port interface + a Power Supply), and the incoming earth wire has been disconnected (so the control box is not internally grounded). Looks like I am going to have to go on a serious grounding exercise...

Would it pay to place a ground wire to the parallel port interface card? (see pic below). Or am I likely to blow it?

[Al_The_Man]

Sounds like you definitely have grounding and bonding issues, the machine frame and the spindle motor frame should be bonded to earth ground.
Your PC power supply is normally also connected to earth ground via the PC MB.
I suspect the reading you are getting are stray leakage paths and will show on a high impedance meter.
In place of the meter, place a load across the points you are measuring such as a 120/240v lamp etc, this will show if it is due to a path that will sustain current, if it does not and the voltage measured collapses then bond all these points to ground.
This confirms whether or not anything will blow when you ground the various points out.
It sounds to me like the machine itself is not bonded?
Also double check your PC Parallel port common to ground to confirm you PC P.S. is grounded.
Al.

[Tony344]

Pretty sure I am all sorted. Thanks for your input Al.. I appreciate it.

I ran an earth from the spindle mount to the VF Drive. VF drive was earthed to incoming power. Also from VF Drive earth to Control box Earth. Earthed the non-earthed power supply in the control box + added an earth to the noise filter on the incoming supply for the control box. Seems stable and steady now.

I have done a couple of test cuts with no issues so far.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyLqUeqsYww"]YouTube - DSCN0895.MOV[/nomedia]

[Tony344]

Attached pics of how I earthed the system.. There have been a few inquiries about how I did it.

[justy22]

I just got the same machine mate, how you getting on with it

Hi guys,

I am completely new to the CNC thing. Hope you can help me out with a problem I am having?

Just recently purchased a 6040 router/mill from an ebay seller. It came with a HY01D523B VFD & a GDZ-65-800 water cooled spindle.

I got the table up and running with no issues. But when running Mach3 (in demo mode), as soon as I start spindle rotation, the external EStop command is triggered. I tried changing the debounce setting in Mach3 from 0 to up to 10000, but all that meant was it took longer for the fault to occur (obviously it is a constant signal).

The spindle supply cable is not shielded (as supplied), so I thought it may be introducing noise into the system. So I removed the cable from the cable snake and ran it separately, but same issue. Then rans a separate ground cable from the spindle mount to the VFD. Still the same result. If I remove the spindle from the machine, I can run it with no issues (spindle running), I can also lay the cable all over the other cables with no issue.But as soon as I touch the casing of the spindle to the machine, the external e-stop is triggered. There is no connection between the VFD and the breakout box (ie no spindle control other than the VFD).

This is the machine I got:
CNC 6040 ROUTER ENGRAVER DRILLING / MILLING MACHINE c6 | eBay The VFD is different to the one pictured, but everything else is the same.

Ideas guys please? I am stuck with a non-functioning machine at the moment (a very expensive paperweight).

[Tony344]

it's great, but figuring out the G code for cutting is harder..

[aarggh]

Pretty sure I am all sorted. Thanks for your input Al.. I appreciate it.

I ran an earth from the spindle mount to the VF Drive. VF drive was earthed to incoming power. Also from VF Drive earth to Control box Earth. Earthed the non-earthed power supply in the control box + added an earth to the noise filter on the incoming supply for the control box. Seems stable and steady now.

I have done a couple of test cuts with no issues so far.

YouTube - DSCN0895.MOV

Hi Tony344,

I'm looking at the same unit and I also noticed they are using a plastic/metal pannelled box, so the components are insulated from each other and nothing is earthed. Further, they have actually cut the earth lug off the input filter to the switchmode PSU. To my mind the parallel port shell or casing should be mains earthed, along with the VFD earth, the Spindle casing, the CNC frame, and the switchmode PSU of course?

I can see a problem though with the 3 drive controllers that might need to be at digital ground, not mains earth. I recall some talk a while back about some drivers and/or interface controller card not being able to be at earth ground or it blew them? So i'm wondering if all the above mains earthing is the proper way to go and is done, but the drivers are lifted off the panel and insulated washers used if this is necessary? It's really nicely wired up, but poorly wiring implimented with ground and noise! I see you've got your's working but i'm worried about the mains earthing feedback long term to the drives, unless the chips are actually insulated on the heatsinks?

cheers,
Ian

[Al_The_Man]

IMO, many of the problems with noise are ground and bonded related, it is most unusual where a drive has switching devices that are common to chassis or signal ground.
The majority of PC.s, at least tower or desk top have the M.B. ground plane at earth ground via the PC P.S. common.
For optimum operation all Earth ground and bonding conductors should go to a central start point that has the system Earth ground conductor connected to it.
Al.

[aarggh]

Hi Al,

That's where i'm not sure if the heatsinks for the drives themselves needs to be isolated from the mains earth?

cheers,
Ian

[Tony344]

did my first 3D design/cutting today. Nothing complicated, just proving concepts. Found the z axis drive connection was a little loose and caused some unwanted slippage early on (rectified). Seems repetitive movement will cause em to slip if they are going to slip at all..

[kiwichris]

Hi,

Just been reading up about the 6040's on ebay. (Seller industry-village)

Aside from the earthing and loose axis, how is it going? It's seems good value for money, and I'm trying to decide on buy / build for a new router..

Cheers, Chris H.

[Tony344]

I'm very happy with mine... but only doing non-commercial stuff. Still feeling my way around it (and the various software packages). Hope to be making a little money on the side shortly doing some Traffolyte label engraving for work.

[Tony344]

OK.. new question for those that might know.. I am thinking of setting up the VFD so that on/off and RPM is controlled by Mach 3 software. Pretty sure you need the modbus link from the VFD, but unsure of how you link that to the PC? Any one done this already?

[Tony344]

So after reading a bit.. I ordered one of these speed control boards:

CNC4PC

Pretty sure the 6040 controller has some connections on the control boards for the PWM output.

[xsnrg]

OK.. new question for those that might know.. I am thinking of setting up the VFD so that on/off and RPM is controlled by Mach 3 software. Pretty sure you need the modbus link from the VFD, but unsure of how you link that to the PC? Any one done this already?

I hope this helps:

Help with Modbus I/O with Brains

[aarggh]

Hi,

Just been reading up about the 6040's on ebay. (Seller industry-village)

Aside from the earthing and loose axis, how is it going? It's seems good value for money, and I'm trying to decide on buy / build for a new router..

Cheers, Chris H.

The machine itself is great and pretty well rock solid, apart from some cosmetic vibration that would be fairly easily fixed, but in my opinion the supplied controller is absolute crap. Aside from the numerous earthing problems, and the fact they supplied a parallel port cable that had the earth shield connected at both ends, which took me a while to woke out that ground loop problem, when I did finally get the controller going after they sent a replacement driver and interface card after a piece of metal from the drilling left inside the case shorted out the boards when I powered it on, the movement was quite grinding and not smooth, and more importatly there was very noticeable step loss at speeds due to the mid band reasonance. I connected a Gecko G540 to it and the difference was miraculous!

So I think the machine would still be well worth getting as long as the price was good, but I would immediately dump the crappy controller with a smooth and powerful G540 to get a much faster, and smoother movement with more torque. Gecko's rock!

You could re-use the supplied controller for another machine but you'd really have to replace the interface/buffer card with a real opto isolated board, but you'd still have the mid band reasonance problem, so you'd be limited at how fast or how deep you can cut.

[kiwichris]

Hi aarggh. :-)

Thanks for that....

I've read a couple of negatives on the drivers on these machines (and the larger 9060). I see they sell them 'machine only' as well, might do that and save a few bucks then fit it out with a gecko.

I'm now tossing up buying one of these style of machines or a much larger Jinan quick-cnc one. I'd like this to be a one-off purchase so I'm procrastinating over it quite a bit.

Cheers, Chris H.

[aarggh]

Hi aarggh. :-)

Thanks for that....

I've read a couple of negatives on the drivers on these machines (and the larger 9060). I see they sell them 'machine only' as well, might do that and save a few bucks then fit it out with a gecko.

I'm now tossing up buying one of these style of machines or a much larger Jinan quick-cnc one. I'd like this to be a one-off purchase so I'm procrastinating over it quite a bit.

Cheers, Chris H.

I've got one of the larger Jinan ones as well now (but not working unfortunately - DOA) and I'd probably recommend starting off with an affordable 6040 as they are a very handy and sturdy machine capable of quite sizeable work. Also they aren't as power hungry as the larger machines. I can pretty well guarantee if you get bitten by the bug you'll be buying more than one CNC machine anyway and you'll find that you'd often end up using the 6040 as a sacrificial machine I think anyway. I actually see a use for smaller machines as well as larger. I have a tiny Sable I use for PCB work, the 6040 for all general stuff, and the Jinan 6090 which I received yesterday for real beefy work.

To my mind it's horses for courses, and taking wear and tear, power consumption, breakdown, accuracy, repeatability, etc, into account, it seems wasteful to me to buy a very large machine for a lot of small work. When I hung doors for a living some years ago, I had half a dozen wood routers which I dedicated to specific tasks, seems expensive, but actually was very cost effective, and as aresult, the more expensive ones lasted forever as the cheaper ones were used for the frequent but mundane and minor work that tended to wear tools out and affect reliability, while the larger ones were used on the more important and accurate work.

My 2c anyway and purely my opinion based on my own experience and use!

If you could get a 6040 without the controller box for a significant discount, that would be the way I'd go.

[kiwichris]

My 2c anyway and purely my opinion based on my own experience and use!

And a sound bit of 2c advice it is....

I've had a small (150x200) junk box router since 2007 and want to move up from dolls sized furniture, so you could say I've had the bug for a while...

For the moment I'm really just trying to collect as much info as possible, as I've a few other things to get out of the way before committing.

The one thing I do know for sure is that I'm not going to build it myself. The cost of parts alone makes it difficult to justify the time it'd take and possibly poorer results at the end of it all to boot as I don't posses the skill in working metal to do it justice.

Thanks, Chris H.