[boydage]

Hi all. Does anyone earth out their new Huanyang Spindle? I have installed one and it bothered me there was no earth on the spindle. I did read one guy on this forum earthed his out on the steel connector and was looking at mine this afternoon. There is no point doing this as the connector is not common with the body of the spindle.

I decided to screw in an earth onto the body, up the top area, where the plastic body enters the spindle where there is room for a self tapper. Well, a 3mm colbalt drill just makes a little polish hole entering the spindle casing about 0.2mm, ha. The body of these spindles are of such high quality steel that it will be a major mission to put a screw through. That is a very good sign of a quality product. BTW mine is air cooled. Next idea is to get a longer screw that retains the top plastic cap and put an earth on this which is common with the outside of the body.

Has anyone else done this in an easier way? Or do most of you not bother? I am not old school but have always thought a steel body piece of electrical tooling should have an earth path should it go wrong.

Thoughts please from the community.

Regards
Boyd

[alan_3301]

This is how most people do it.
Just make sure there is continuity between the body and the top cap, provided by clean contact between the top cap and top screw heads.
Attachment 234874

[mactec54]

Hi all. Does anyone earth out their new Huanyang Spindle? I have installed one and it bothered me there was no earth on the spindle. I did read one guy on this forum earthed his out on the steel connector and was looking at mine this afternoon. There is no point doing this as the connector is not common with the body of the spindle.

Yes you need to have a ground wire attached for your spindle,(it would be a wiring code violation, if you did not use a Ground connection) you also need to be able to ground the shield as well at both ends, at the VFD & the spindle, or you will have lot's of noise that will mess up the rest of your cnc system

Putting the Ground wire connection, under the screw that holds a plastic cover is not satisfactory, it has to be metal to metal contact, with nothing in between

[boydage]

My top cap is plastic so unfortunately the first picture wont work. There is continuity between the top cap screws and the body so I may just look for a longer screw. I was going to put a little hole in the actual body on the top area in a non critical space which would work. But even a new 2mm colbalt drill only polished the casing - hows that for Chinese quality!

Mactec. Are you saying my 3 wire power to the spindle from the inverter should be shielded?

[mactec54]

My top cap is plastic so unfortunately the first picture wont work. There is continuity between the top cap screws and the body

Mactec. Are you saying my 3 wire power to the spindle from the inverter should be shielded?

As I posted using the screw is not satisfactory, if you turned were the screw is to a stud, then used a nut your ground terminal & another nut to lock it all together, then that would work, but putting the Ground wire against the plastic is something you do not do, I'm sure it has some were that you can drill & tap a hole for a Ground, do some photos of your spindle, I'm sure other's have used the same spindle, almost all of the spindles water & air need to have the ground wire mounting modified

As for the power cable yes it has to be shielded & correctly installed

[boydage]

I understand. I shielded the power wire to the spindle today by ruining an earth braid over the top. I am going to drill a hole into the side of the case (might take a while I have not come across metal that hard for a while)

I would have thought the spindle should have its own earth connection. Like I am employed and work with electricity. Lots of guys wont know this.

[mactec54]

I understand. I shielded the power wire to the spindle today by ruining an earth braid over the top. I am going to drill a hole into the side of the case (might take a while I have not come across metal that hard for a while.

I would have thought the spindle should have its own earth connection. Like I am employed and work with electricity. Lots of guys wont know this.

Most of the Chinese spindles have a very poor Ground connection, a lot do it like alan_3301 shows in his post, but when you have a plastic cap, like you have you have to mount the terminal to any were you can on the metal body, find a place under the cap, there should be enough room

I would check your drill as the metal will not be very hard, unless you are drilling into a bearing, post a photo of your spindle

Be careful with the shield, this is not to be used as a Ground for your spindle, make sure the Ground wire is terminated correctly

[Al_The_Man]

I would have thought the spindle should have its own earth connection. Like I am employed and work with electricity. Lots of guys wont know this.

Helpful PDF here on grounding and bonding.
http://www.automation.siemens.com/do.../emv_r.pdf?p=1
Al.

[ger21]

I would have thought the spindle should have its own earth connection. Like I am employed and work with electricity. Lots of guys wont know this

If it wasn't made in China, it most likely would.

[neilw20]

4 wires to the motor. The 3 power wires, and a ground. Earthing the shield at both ends will probably cause problems.
Earth it at the VFD end only. Reason: if only connected at one end current cannot flow through it.
Read the PDF Al posted. It recommends complete bonding all place all ends, but unless you do all the the bonding processes, leaving the motor end of the shield unterminated will probably be best.
Always run a separate earth lead and never use the shield for the earth path.
If you only have a 3 wire shielded cable, run a separate earth wire tie wrapped to it.

[mactec54]

Earthing the shield at both ends will probably cause problems.

Most VFD manufactures recommend, to Ground both ends, VFD & motor ends of the shield, should be terminated, all other shielded wire is normally only grounded at the input end

[boydage]

I used a three wire extension cord for the power to my spindle. I then added a 2.5mm wire for an earth and terminated it to the side of the spindle. Honestly with a new cobalt 3mm drill it was a mission to put a hole in the side of this baby but I got it through and have a locknut on the other side. The power cord and earth were then pushed through a braid that has been hanging around my shed for a while. The braid and the earth wire are terminated at the inverter and connected to the earth screw inside the inverter. I have only put some heat-shrink over the top of the spindle to make it look pretty. So now everything is earthed, safe and professional.

Attachment 235368

[keebler303]

Most VFD manufactures recommend, to Ground both ends, VFD & motor ends of the shield, should be terminated, all other shielded wire is normally only grounded at the input end

+1

The VFD wiring is emitting the EMF so it doesn't matter if you have a ground loop as it will not interfere with the motor operation.

[mactec54]

+1

The VFD wiring is emitting the EMF so it doesn't matter if you have a ground loop as it will not interfere with the motor operation.

Ground Loop !!! That is a miss conception,in this case, if everything has been Ground/Bonded correct, there is no Ground Loop

[keebler303]

Ground Loop !!! That is a miss conception,in this case, if everything has been Ground/Bonded correct, there is no Ground Loop

Right. The idea with shielding signal wires is (was?) to only earth one end so you don't get current flowing in it (due to a ground Loop) which will generate EM noise. On a motor cable, even if you have a ground loop, it won't matter to the motor. That same ground loop on a signal wire may give you problems with EM noise. Even if you have terrible grounding/bonding, your motor will not care if there is a ground loop allowing current to flow through the cable shield.

[boydage]

There are definitely no signal wires in any proximity of this cable. So all is good from what you guys see? I feel much better anyway. Now I am getting brain fade setting up my switches.