Hi,

I did what I should not have and did 3 upgrades (spindle motor quick disconnect to prep for rapid turn, the smart cool and the power meter) at the the same time on my series 3, very shortly (say about 45 seconds over two cycles) after powering up the spindle at 250RPMs with no load it died. - lesson learned one upgrade at a time.

Smart cool works, every thing works, except spindle.
It spun for about 15 second the night I installed it and it was in the right direction sounded right so I called it and went to bed happy, next morning I wanted to verify the speed of the spindle and while getting the optical revolution counter ready the spindle just stopped, tried e-stop, reset, power cycle nothing brought it back

  1. Spindle door switch is making good contact past the trip point as that can prevent the VFD from coming on.
  2. Spindle lockout key works, have used it to clear the codes and it was not moved when this started.
  3. Double checked all my wiring at motor electrical box and owed out every cable form VFD to motor and all looks good, no shorts between lines nor opens on lines. No poor connections with stringers.
  4. C2 contractor (controls power to the VFD motor drive):
    1. Only engages if I disconnect the 3 motor lines from the VFD (400, 401, 402) but as expected gives an error code, it looks like tr r5 - suspect this is indicating open load, did not trace this as i expect an error.
    2. C2 contractor does not engage if I leave the 3 motor lines connected to the VFD , have finally gotten it to show me an error code and its 01.AC - which the manual describes as "VFD output instantaneous over current" infers a short to the motor or at the motor, not sure why its now showing a code all of a sudden, but while in the early debug I got nothing (hum, maybe early debug was misleading due to issues with 105/105A (spindle door open as the contact on the shorting bricks at the bottom of the cabinet are weak at best, wires come out easily and are a pain to put back in) anyway I got a code and its telling me ohm things out.

  5. few more observations:
    1. Getting same result with path pilot as with manual controls which bypass the parallel printer cable/ribbon cable - so its not these cables. (also both reverse and forward do the same and I would suspect they are on different wires of these cables)
    2. FU01 and FU02 fuses are good
    3. By the way the motor is wired as a delta not a Y, did not change this.
    4. Also tried sticking in the PCNC 1100 programming key (when mill was fully off) in the VFD, powering it back on and testing spindle, but that did not help.


Here is the key help I would really appreciate - I measured around 3.2 - 3.3 ohms between any of the 3 lines at the VFD (wires 400, 401,402) after disconnecting them from the VFD but leaving them connected at the motor, does this sound right? Can anyone measure to confirm this is expected, I find it hard to believe that I killed the motor, but would really like to know if this matches readings for other PCNC 1100 spindles.

Will look for a VFD self test in the morning.

Any debug suggestions welcomed

Thanks

PS: Tormach support (the reason I went with PCNC 1100) called back and was great to talk with, gave many ideas and insight based on no error codes, but with a full time week day job, I only get to debug at times when Tormach support is closed, so hoping community can help me get this system back up - thanks