My Chinese CNC Saga (continued)
For those who've followed my posts in the Chinese Machine thread, I thought I should start a new thread to stop clogging up that one.
A quick recap for those who don't know. I purchase a "Walter 6545" from eBay on 3rd August, as well as separately purchasing a pendant and a rotational axis from the same supplier. The pendant came Hong Kong Post, and arrived a week later (a record for me from Hong Kong) and the rest was sent by UPS and arrived August 19th, in 2 large packages.
Upon opening the boxes, I found several problems.
1. Table bent in one corner, and the angle piece for the cable slide bent on the other side.
2. Plastic housing around the motor shafts split in 2
3. Power cable for the controller not supplied with Australian plug, which I asked and checked before purchasing
4. Spindle connector for controller box has incompatible plug
5. No power cable for water pump supplied - pump has 2 bare connectors, and a plug for the controller is included, but has half of the clamp section missing
So, this is what's happened since then.
1. Supplier contacted about damage, reply is "talk to the post office". Now UPS policy is for the supplier to lodge damage claims, but I contacted UPS and told them the supplier was not being helpful. Since then I've emailed back & forth to UPS about 10 times, sent about 20 photos, explanations of what's happened and package dimensions. Final result yesterday was that they've lodged the claim for me, and will notify the supplier of the outcome :doh:
2. Regarding the missing parts etc, I've sent multiple emails to the supplier with little feedback. The first box I opened was the controller box, which had just the plugs for the 3 axes connectors, the spindle connector and the water pump connector, but then on unwrapping all the other bits, I find they all (except the water pump) have connectors on already, even though they're not all correct. So the question is, is the expectation for me to undo and re-solder all the bits that don't match? Certainly was no mention of having to rewire anything in the eBay listing. Anyway, when I saw half of the pump connector missing, that was my first email and they said they'd send a replacement, but I haven't seen it yet.
Once I got further into the unwrapping process, I found the other problems. The water pump having no cable is the biggest "missing" bit, as I can't even try to run anything until I get that sorted. I'm still not sure if I should just buy 2 pieces of normal wired and solder the connectors to the plug, or whether I need to build to any specifications, or direction for the hookup.
When I tried to connect the spindle cable, it happily fit on the spindle end, but the plug that goes into the back of the connector, while being 4-pin, in no other way matches the socket. Now I do have a matching connector in that spares bag that came with the controller, but that would require pulling off the existing plug (and I had a look, there's only 3 wires inside, not 4, so one pin is not wired) and rewiring to the new one. Not that hard, but not something I'm an expert at either, especially if the ordering of the pins is important, which I imagine it is)
And lastly, the non-australian plug, I guess is simply solved by getting one of those multi-country adaptors. But I've used those before, and the resulting connection is usually quite loose and wobbly, and having wobbly power points in a dusty, drippy, messy shop environment is not something that makes me comfortable. The pain for me on this one is the principal that i asked before purchase if it was ready for Australian power connection.
So, I await the outcome of the UPS damage claim and a response on "fixing" the connection problems from the supplier. How long I wait now before I lodge a paypal claim for a "not what I ordered" and "poor packaging" complaint is the question. You only have 45 days from purchase to lodge one, so I think I'll give them a couple days more and see what happens.
In the meantime, it's annoying I'm still waiting to even power the thing up and see if it works, but at least I'm getting plenty of time to study everything and figure out what to do with it when it is all finally up and going :)
Russell.