Some helpful info on water cooled spindle upgrade

It has taken me almost two months and I finally found someone to help me get this setup correctly. I hope this can help someone else with the same setup.

Spindle 220V 3.5A 400 Hz
VFD has a 110V input and a 220V 3-phase to the spindle

PD001 0
PD002 0
PD003 400
PD004 400
PD005 400
PD006 20.5 (If this
PD007 20.0 and this are set too low the spindle will over-amp the vfd at startup.)
PD008 110 (This is the input voltage, not the spindle rated voltage.)
PD009 6.5
PD010 6.5
PD011 10.0
PD014 5.0
PD042 15.0 (Carrier freqency - this will help with high pitched squeal.)
PD142 3.5 (Rated amps for the spindle. Don’t set this higher…)
PD143 2 (number of poles. This is not apparent on all spindles.)
PD144 This sets the rpm. I run anywhere from 1000 - 3000 resulting in 10000 - 24000 rpm

3 Likes

Just a word of caution about cranking the carrier frequency all the way up, it will reduce coil whine in the spindle, but the higher the carrier frequency the higher the heating of the IGBT’s in the VFD. If you’re not pushing the VFD very hard it probably won’t be an issue, but if your running near the current limit it can cook the module.

Also the higher the carrier frequency the more EMI radiated from the motor and cables, so if you don’t have a good shielded VFD cable and start getting limit switch trips, or controller disconnects lowering the carrier can help.

Thanks for that advice. The spindle is pretty close to the upper limit for this VFD, so I’ll monitor it closely. I might even decide to put up with the noise and lower it. I did invest in a pricey shielded cable from McMaster Carr, about $6.50 per foot and so far no problems with the machine. I did not run the cable through the carrier but have it running down from a 3 foot 2X4 on the back of the table. Since the water lines have to be there too, it is not a bad setup.