Sure, though, I just recently replaced my cable chains with larger ones, and ended up having to take them off.
Here are the two panel mount pieces, they have a G 1/4 female thread on one side, and the QDC on the other
Here is the 3/8 ID 1/2 OD Mail QDC
Here are the 1/4 ID barbs G 1/4 threads
Thanks for everything you have shared here, Chris. I am about to place an order for my VFD in the coming hours and I am already most of the way through printing your 80mm mounting bracket. The universal spindle plate from Inventables has been ordered as of last night to mate with it. This will be replacing my more standard Dewalt setup.
Couple of questions, if you donāt mind:
Your 3D printed mount: has it proven to be solid for you? No flex or other instability issues under the stress of use in this manner? Iām printing mine right now with 40% infill, but opted to use PETG rather than PLA for its durability and tendency to be less brittle. Halfway through Iām now wondering if that is a mistake on my part that might introduce even a slight bit of elasticity/flex that PLA wouldnāt. On the other hand, perhaps that is better than PLA which could maybe stress fracture rather than give? Any thoughts from experience thus far?
Water cooled vs. Air cooled: You had water cooling stuff on hand from what I read, so seems logical that you went that way. Starting fresh, would I be better with water cooled for the long run or is the air cooled version I was looking at sufficient?
I had this pair (below) in mind since the VFD does the voltage step-up internally, so it seemed I could eliminate the standalone transformer. Does that work as well as a native 220 with an outside transformer unit? It wouldnāt be impossible for me to pull 220 right to the workshop someday and skip the transformers entirely, so I donāt want to be shortsighted or skimp at this stage if native 220 and a dedicated transformer are better in the interim.
VFD:
Spindle:
Whatās the risk / benefit comparison of 1.5KW vs .800KW? Right off the bat, I recognize I could just shim my Dewalt mount with a narrower .800KW and the weight is, I imagine, less. My XCarve is a 1000mm model recently upgraded with the kit to the new stronger gantry and the X-Controller. Big tradeoffs there in capability vs. added hassles for the larger spindle?
Hoping my SuckIt dust boot will carry over in a compatible manner. If not, do you mind sharing your STL and other parts for the boot I see in your last photo so I can print one? Someone gave me a HUGE shop dust collector built, I suspect, in the 80s or so. Itās a tank and I look forward to getting it up and running soon (sitting under a tarp right now until I can wire up the circuit it needs and repair a switch on it).
Last question: Iāve seen indications the new X-Controller can likely interface with the VFD properly with its expanded ports (PWM or analog, etc). Has this proven true? Love for start/stop and spindle speed to be fully automated.
Thanks for all of your great info and for slogging through this tome Iāve just written! 
14.5 hrs later, I have my 40% infill, PETG spindle holder ready to roll. Lightweight but strong.
Now I just need a spindle for it. 
@halfpress you are very welcome, I am glad you found the information beneficial!
As far as the mount, I have not had any issues that I have noticed from flex; however, I have developed a small stress crack in the front piece. I does not appear to have caused any issued and I have made a few cuts with it in that condition without issues. so far I am chalking the crack up to over tightening. I am going to print a new copy on my Form 2 in the super uber resin soon.
Air cooling is definitely a lot simpler to setup and maintain, though you cannot run the spindle as slow. Being able to slow the spindle down helps when cutting things like acrylic, or when using a 4 flute cutter. There is a lot more to worry about with the water cooled setup though, mostly procedural. For mine i tried to build as many safe guards into the system as I could, like getting a relay that turns on my pump as soon as I plug in my vfd, and putting in a flow meter on the outlet of the spindle so I know for sure that water is flowing through the motor. I honestly cannot answer the run time question though, no personal experience with the air cooled setup.
I had originally ordered a 110v VFD and a 200v motor just like you had linked, and it would not run it up to full rpm, I am assuming because of amp limitations. Thought when I was originally setting that combination up, I could not get clear guidance on exactly what settings I should be using. In fact if you look at the vfd page you linked it says to use 11 for PD142, and that is wrong. PD142 is the max current rating of your spindle, and the 1500 will probably be rated for 3 - 5 amps MAX, so just using 11 could damage the spindle. I ended up switching to a 220v vfd and had no problems getting it all running properly.
Unless you were going to be doing major aluminium work, I donāt think you would find the .8kw spindle lacking in power.
As long as you have the x axis reinforced well, you will be just fine with the 1500. The weight difference between the .8 and the 1500 is pretty significant, especially once you mount it on the x axis.
You will probably find the Suckit Distboot gets in the way of the spindle going all the way down. The design I have was from another forum member, and the hole is not large enough nor outset enough for the motor to go down without pushing it around. I need to make some design changes and print a new one. I would be happy to share that stl if you feel you need it, just let me know.
I cannot answer the X Controller question, I have not looked much into it as it is not a component I am interested in. Right now I am using the gshield, and a 12 inch windows 10 tablet to run my machine and it is working well enough. I will eventually put in a better motion control system, just have not decided which direction I want to go with it.
Very sorry for the late reply and sincere thanks for your detailed reply last month. Life got crazy busy after my initial inquiry and I, for the most part, shelved thus until this week during my Christmas holiday (one of the big perks of working for a college even as staff: closed for well over a week this time of year for a college-wide holiday).
I had ended up with a 110v VFD with built in step-up to 220v. The spindle is the 1.5kW air cooled design. I might change some of this in time. Iām running new power out to the workshop probably this week that would open the door to 220v, but so far my preliminary and minimal testing seems solid.
If the RPM info on the VFD is to be believed, Iām getting what seems to be the proper range of speeds. Iām using 7200 as my minimum since I gather I shouldnāt run air cooled below about that range for cooling purposes. Currently this minimum is me being careful since the various mechanisms (VFD or GRLB) for declaring minimum speed seem to screw with the on/off and proper ranging across 0-10v if I have anything but zero as my min. I might have to revisit this in case Iām approaching it wrong.
This afternoon, I got the VFD attached to my X-Controller and am successfully turning it on and off and setting my spindle speeds via gcode. Initially I was simply getting full on or full off with M3 no matter what and I started adjusting the firmware defaults (Iāve done a lot of Arduino work over the years, so am comfy there) to declare my RPM min/max so the 0-10v would scale properly. Nothing I did was making a difference until I realized I simply needed to adjust $30 & $31 in the GRBL EEPROM-stored settings. Voila. S8000 followed by M3 and Iām at 8000 RPM. M5 and Iām off.
I did noticed the RPMs were off by maybe 100-150 at any declared speed. I tweaked the behavior by diddling with the $30 RPM max so the scale relative to the 0-10v from the X-Controller mapped more closely. Now I get about 7220 for S7200 and am figuring thatās probably sufficient.
Iāve only been doing air cuts so far - partly to be cautious and observe each step of the upgrade, but also because I misread the collet info and wrongly assumed my Dewalt stuff was E11. Turns out the nut threads on fine, but my current collet springs donāt fit into the spindle. So Iām limited to the E11 w/1.4" spring that came on the spindle (which amounts to only a few end mills in my kit for the moment) while I await a new set of collet nuts and springs to arrive that are truly E11. Then I can use my 1/8" end mills again. Should arrive Wednesday.
A few things Iām noticing that I need to tackle next:
Wonderful to have software controlled speeds and starts/stops, but I realized in watching that the spindle is still coming up to speed when the cutting starts. Iām guessing I need to put delays into my preprocessor config to allow some spin up time during starts and tool changes?
Obviously, this sucker is heavier than the Dewalt 611. So far, none of my steppers are getting hot, etcā¦ but Iāve only been air cutting and donāt know yet how it will deal with resistance. I remember calibrating my steppers on the original gShield and need to look into that for the X-Controller. Safe to assume the power levels might need some tweaking with eight pounds of spindle sitting there?
During some air cut testing, I did notice my X motion seems to have a tiny bit of judder / shudder in it as itās goes from about 1/3 to 2/3rds left and right of center on the gantry. Perhaps itās unrelated to where on the gantry and perhaps a non-issue under cutting loadā¦ but I donāt quite see whatās causing this yet if itās even a worry. It comes back to my previous question of whether I do need to increase motor power. I donāt sense this at all on Y axis moves.
My steppers donāt seem to be getting even warm, much less hot. The spindle gets warm to the touch, but not hot thus far.
Chris - your mount seems to work great! Itās holding super snug using the PETG 3D printed version I pictured in my last post. Iāve not looked closely yet to check square on everything and Iād have to ponder how to even tweak that if itās an issue. Any concerns there?
Any real value in flipping between software controlled forward and reverse with most cutting? And were I to wish to do that, am I guessing right Iād need to repurpose the X-Controller M7 and M8 terminals for those triggers? What kind of mess does this present code-wise if this is the right approach?
I think I need to be alert about behavior with the on/off via software. Were I to turn off the VFD for some reason while M3 is active, I think turning it back on would mean the spindle instantly spins up. Not sure the scenarios where that could be happening, but there seems to be some risk/reward between having the whole system turn the spindle on/off with the job and worries about scenarios where the spindle could start or be running on you unplanned?
Iām sure I have more questions, but Iām partly writing this all out in case the questions spur discussion that helps others pursuing the same upgrade. Any thoughts you have are much appreciated.
Happy Holidays, all!
Quick update to my own post above: I solved my spindle startup time issues. I found where I could reduce the spinup time in the VFD. I knocked it back to about four seconds (from a default of 20) and also added a G4 P4 to my pre-processor so add a little delay for coverage on job start and tool changes. Seems a good balance.
While doing some testing tonight, I also touched the unit at one point and felt a minor shock. I tested it and found between 35v and 130v (not sure on the amperage, so might not be quite as bad as it sounds) between the metal housing of the spindle and ground in the VFD. This led to some discoveries regarding ground on the circuit powering the VFD (now resolved), but it also got me digging a bit deeper about the spindle.
Some research online revealed a lot of people finding that pin #4 on the spindle (ground) isnāt connected. I opened mine and, sure enough, pin four (which I had dutifully wired back to the VFD ground in my shielded cable from the outset) had no wire on it internally.
I drilled a small hole in the plastic housing where the wire bundle attaches to the spindle, soldered a wire to pin #4 and attached it under one of the screws in the housing. I now have continuity between the spindle housing (right down to the end mill itself) and the ground back at the VFD (screw terminal E). After doing this, I no longer get more than, say, a volt (if that) off the housing when measuring like before and not so much as a tingle when touching it.
Perhaps on other systems a metal mount might have led to ground, but between my 3D printed mount insulating the spindle and the plastic v-wheels and delrin nut sitting between the spindle and the X-Carve frame (which I doubt is grounded anyway), it seems all the more critical to make sure that pin #4 grounds the housing.
Curious if anyone else has tested theirs? I read a few others on other sites complaining of tingles, shocks and measurable voltage on theirs as well.
Bewareā¦
What are the positives of running an air cooled VFD over a DeWalt type spindle?
Way more controller over RPMs. More torque at low RPMs. Significantly quieter.
When he says significantly quieter means be careful because you will forget itās even on. Ask me how I know.
Thatās amazing. I looked at the price of the VFD spindles and they look cheaper than the name brand router spindles you can get.
Probably worth noting that the water cooled ones are very quiet. The air cooled units can still be pretty loud, though not as loud as the Dewalt. Thatās my experience anyway.
As for control over RPMs, etcā¦ definitely why I did it. Having it using variable speeds to fit my cut as well as turn itself off when finished or between tool changes is exceedingly handy.
To add to the benefits, you do not have brushes to wear out in a VFD spindle like you do in a router.
Are you selling these?
