Thread: Hello and can I get help, my VFD from new router tripping RCD

Goodness !! did I cause this flaming?
Half truths and misinformation.???.. As I said in my post, I have the same motor so was able to give comparative readings directly from my motor, doesn't that make it a truth? I don't think of myself as a layman as I am licensed, including test and tag and have many years testing and fixing electrical and electronic systems so would like to think I know a little about whether a motor is shorted to ground or not. Boothie had the intelligence to establish the spindle is shorted to ground by isolating the spindle and then by metering the motor, it showed a low resistance value to ground. A digital multi meter is not the best way to test the motor insulation but it will show if there is a short or low resistance as it did in this case. He was asking for confirmation of his findings and I agreed his motor was shorted to ground which would cause his RCD to trip and I based my reply on my own findings of a motor I had burn out, not hear say. Maybe my idea of pulling the top off the motor is not good until he establishes if the warranty will be honoured .. but when I tried to claim warranty on my burned motor, which had run only a few hours, I got no where, not even a reply from the seller who is reputed to be one of the more respected sellers by people of this forum. I wouldn't have thought undoing a few screws on the motor to look for water would be considered dangerous and be beyond the skill of most people, but I must be wrong.
People on this forum have been very helpful to me in the past and I only post if I think I have something positive or helpful to post. Information from any forum should be taken with due care and no one should try things outside their level of skill but I thought the idea of forums was like minded people sharing knowledge and experiences to benefit all. Boothie was trying to gather information to build his case for a warranty claim and I simply substantiated his findings based on my actual experience, not hear say. I think Boothie can appreciate the risk and danger of tinkering with mains power.. but maybe I am wrong there too.
Maybe I should just remove my previous post then to stay safe?
cheers
paranoid peter

Originally Posted by Peda

Goodness !! did I cause this flaming?
Half truths and misinformation.???.. As I said in my post, I have the same motor so was able to give comparative readings directly from my motor, doesn't that make it a truth? I don't think of myself as a layman as I am licensed, including test and tag and have many years testing and fixing electrical and electronic systems so would like to think I know a little about whether a motor is shorted to ground or not. Boothie had the intelligence to establish the spindle is shorted to ground by isolating the spindle and then by metering the motor, it showed a low resistance value to ground. A digital multi meter is not the best way to test the motor insulation but it will show if there is a short or low resistance as it did in this case. He was asking for confirmation of his findings and I agreed his motor was shorted to ground which would cause his RCD to trip and I based my reply on my own findings of a motor I had burn out, not hear say. Maybe my idea of pulling the top off the motor is not good until he establishes if the warranty will be honoured .. but when I tried to claim warranty on my burned motor, which had run only a few hours, I got no where, not even a reply from the seller who is reputed to be one of the more respected sellers by people of this forum. I wouldn't have thought undoing a few screws on the motor to look for water would be considered dangerous and be beyond the skill of most people, but I must be wrong.
People on this forum have been very helpful to me in the past and I only post if I think I have something positive or helpful to post. Information from any forum should be taken with due care and no one should try things outside their level of skill but I thought the idea of forums was like minded people sharing knowledge and experiences to benefit all. Boothie was trying to gather information to build his case for a warranty claim and I simply substantiated his findings based on my actual experience, not hear say. I think Boothie can appreciate the risk and danger of tinkering with mains power.. but maybe I am wrong there too.
Maybe I should just remove my previous post then to stay safe?
cheers
paranoid peter

You have identified some issues with giving this type of advice over a Forum

• No one knows who you are as most people use pseudonyms.
• How do you know the qualifications of the person giving advice? Before I retired when some one brought a motor into our repair shop and they started sprouting the garbage that has been mentioned here they usually copped a higher price for the repair.
• Boothie, spent a lot of money on a brand new machine, following encouragement from Forum members he has started to dismantle it, THIS USUALLY VOIDS THE WARRANTY how can the dealer tell if Boothie has not caused the problem him self?
• See my earlier comment about possible liability for the Forum if some of this advice causes an injury.

Most reputable and responsible licensed electrical trades people will always tell you to have the item checked by a licensed person NOT offer advice on how to do it yourself, there are penalties and consequences for the licensed trades person if he tells some one how to do something and it is later proven that that advice caused an injury or worse a fatality.


I will always contend that the Forum should not allow this type of discussion to take place?

Phil Spencer,
has Boothie starting to dismatle something yet? That's news to me....
Which bit anyone sprouted is 'garbage', please?
As I said earlier: we are all enthusiasts here and want to know how things work and makes them stop working. Some of us are qualified to make risk assessments, some of us are even qualified to give advice and other are very experienced in the desing and construction of our equipment or have even built it ourselves. You are quite right, none of us know each other's qualifications - and they are almost irrelevant in this thread, since Boothie clearly want s to find information, not take risks.

Now, when it turns out that his spindle warranty is not honoured after all efforts, then I for one would like him to pull it apart and photograph the insides to see the cause of the problem. That information might save my hide one day! Because his is a new piece of equipment and has a fault. If that is a design fault, I'd like to knwo what it is, so that I can avoid purchasing equipment with a potentially life threatening design fault.
Anyway, calling people's contributions garbage, talking about liability, misinformation, half truths and sprouting expletives like Holey crap and FFS, without identifying what you are referring to is just not helpful to anyone.
Cheers,
Joe

Read the rules for the liability statement. Essentially the forums can accept no liability whatsoever for what is posted here.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f90/fo...ad-them-33202/ and https://www.woodworkforums.com/f90/wh...ead-too-33200/

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Originally Posted by jhovel

Phil Spencer,
has Boothie starting to dismatle something yet? That's news to me....
Which bit anyone sprouted is 'garbage', please?
As I said earlier: we are all enthusiasts here and want to know how things work and makes them stop working. Some of us are qualified to make risk assessments, some of us are even qualified to give advice and other are very experienced in the desing and construction of our equipment or have even built it ourselves. You are quite right, none of us know each other's qualifications - and they are almost irrelevant in this thread, since Boothie clearly want s to find information, not take risks.

Now, when it turns out that his spindle warranty is not honoured after all efforts, then I for one would like him to pull it apart and photograph the insides to see the cause of the problem. That information might save my hide one day! Because his is a new piece of equipment and has a fault. If that is a design fault, I'd like to knwo what it is, so that I can avoid purchasing equipment with a potentially life threatening design fault.
Anyway, calling people's contributions garbage, talking about liability, misinformation, half truths and sprouting expletives like Holey crap and FFS, without identifying what you are referring to is just not helpful to anyone.
Cheers,
Joe

I was just pointing out how dangerous it was to give out this information without showing your qualifications. It was some one else who was flaming you,

BTW I have Tertiary qualifications in Electrical Engineering (20 years with motors) Mechanical Engineering qualifications as well as electrical trade qualifications on top of that I also have tertiary qualifications in Marketing and business.

Hi again Phil.
I don't feel flamed at all! This is a good robust discussion! My reponse to you was a two question "please explain" post. I didn't question your qualifications, I asked you to specify the 'garbage' and why you thought Boothie had dismantled anything.

I asked the same kind of explanation of Tools4me - again, not becasue I felt slighted or flamed in any way, but because I assume that you and he know something I don't - which is VERY likely. And I'm here and ready to learn something any day!

It's just not contibuting to mine and others' learning to be told soemthing someone somewher in a thread is dangerous, garbage, halfpthrue or misinforming without saying what it is and correcting it.

I'm still hoping you and tools4me will do that. This is a useful discussion, please don't back off.

Cheers,
Joe

willing pupil
(PS: yep, I have few trade and tertiary quals in related and unrelated fields as well... I work as a part time community psychiatric nurse these days but will retire shortly...)

since we have too spell out all the danger " DONT grab the bit while the spindle is on "

this was a nanny state announcement

wow we need an electrician to unplug a spindle , and put an ohm meter across it ?
but then again , an electrician will point out the AUDIO 4 pin plug built into these spindles ,is not rated to do the job its doing , and the spindle ( direct import from china )has no Australian / European standards marks on it ( CE ) , machines come un earthed , the list is endless

one reason to point new cnc byers away form the " super cheep " china imports is the fact that they have not been verified to conform to the Australian standards , where any machine sold through an australian shop is ( its also 2x the price )

Originally Posted by jhovel

Hi again Phil.
I don't feel flamed at all! This is a good robust discussion! My reponse to you was a two question "please explain" post. I didn't question your qualifications, I asked you to specify the 'garbage' and why you thought Boothie had dismantled anything.

I asked the same kind of explanation of Tools4me - again, not becasue I felt slighted or flamed in any way, but because I assume that you and he know something I don't - which is VERY likely. And I'm here and ready to learn something any day!

It's just not contibuting to mine and others' learning to be told soemthing someone somewher in a thread is dangerous, garbage, halfpthrue or misinforming without saying what it is and correcting it.

I'm still hoping you and tools4me will do that. This is a useful discussion, please don't back off.

Cheers,
Joe

willing pupil
(PS: yep, I have few trade and tertiary quals in related and unrelated fields as well... I work as a part time community psychiatric nurse these days but will retire shortly...)

Just looking at some pictures and theories and comments is not enough. It would be irresponsible to comment without looking at the machine. That is why we use to charge extra when some one came into the workshop exposing all sorts of theories it was to discourage them! We learnt a long time ago that to listen and to act on their theories was to waste time looking for something that was not there.

Boothie should take the machine back to the point of sale, or have their authorised representative call and look at the machine.

Originally Posted by SawDustSniffer

since we have too spell out all the danger " DONT grab the bit while the spindle is on "

this was a nanny state announcement

wow we need an electrician to unplug a spindle , and put an ohm meter across it ?
but then again , an electrician will point out the AUDIO 4 pin plug built into these spindles ,is not rated to do the job its doing , and the spindle ( direct import from china )has no Australian / European standards marks on it ( CE ) , machines come un earthed , the list is endless

Unfortunately with electrical equipment that is the way it has to be. Because the market would be overrun with dangerous unsafe crap otherwise.

Hello All,
Been on site all day like all of this week and next week. Just got home and found this extensive discussion. Let me clear the air a bit...
First- I respect electricity
Second - would rather have a warrenty honoured instead of voiding it, i'm not pulling anything apart. First i'm interested in getting a safe function cnc that ican use and not worry about.

Let me just recap,
receaved a new cnc package, followed assembly instructions. Which are the instruction sent to all purchases of this type of small scale CNC router. Once the machine had been set up began to use the unit, it tripped the circuit, fine it was on the same RCD as other appliances (PC, controller box, radio, light) so figured to change the power point to a different circuit in case it was being overloaded by the VFD and what it was drawing. So i changed the connection to my professionally installed 15amp point, it was the only equipment connected to that circuit. It tripped again, so i checked my wiring, as directed from instructions to see if there was a clear reason the earth leakage tripped.
I then issolated the machine and started to gather information on similar faults and possiable trouble shooting for this type of equipment. Informed the seller of the re-occuring fault.
Had a chat to a sparkie at work, who i showed the VFD to and he looked at the unit and said this is how it should behave. But he was not familiar with this exact model and how it would behave with my spindle.
So to help find the root of the fault i asked the people who own this type of equipment what is the norm.
I wasn't ever going to be plugging the router in to do live tests, it was clear there was a fault or major issue somewhere in the system.
All the advice i have recieved and followed has been a non-live testing and data gathering.
If someone had advised me to just stick some wires onto the winding and do... I would have just choosen to not attempt that type of diagnostics. I'm not that keen to get to the bottom of it.
I just want to know information that i can gather in a safe way to build a case for a warrenty claim.
I'm responsable for my own safety and so if i feel that someones suggestion is unsafe i will just not do it. The sparkie that i have spoken to at work was more than happy to come and look over the installation which i had muted with him when we spoke about the VFD. But first i need to have information that i could answer him and the seller with.
So everyone thank you for you input, for those that were worried that i was going to attempt something that was dangerous thank you for your raising of the dangerous that are inherent when dealing with electricity.
For the most part i was just trying to get to know what the norm was, its not a simple or common device i have purchased. While i have experence with CNC equipment i don't have experence with the behavour traits of VFD power supply or water cooled spindles.

Phil Spencer,
I agree with all you said, but you are dodging my question - are you?
Boothie, thanks for confirming that you haven't pulled anything apart yet.
I reckon I've re-read this thread about 6 times.... can't find anything dodgy or garbage or misleading or half true... apart from my posts, obviously...

Joe