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2.2 kW Spindle Upgrade

Along with the electronics upgrade, a 2.2 kW Huanyang VFD and water cooled spindle has been installed in place of the previous DeWalt routers I had been using (both the DW618 and DWP611). The VFD is connected to LinuxCNC to enable it to be controlled automatically by the G code when files are run on the machine.

I’ve read many (sometimes conflicting) opinions about water cooled vs air cooled and 110 vac vs 220 vac spindle motors. So, going forward I will be testing each of the above for myself.

I’m starting with the Huanyang HY series VFD. This specific model is for 110 vac input and 110 vac 3 phase output. The spindle is a 2.2 kW 110 vac 3 phase 400 Hz motor with water cooling. The cooling pump is a submersible aquarium style pump that is being controlled from LinuxCNC to automatically turn on and off when needed.

I tested out two methods of controlling the VFD. The first method is using the Mesa 7i76e, which has a dedicated terminal block for analog spindle control. The second method is RS-485 control direct from the PC to VFD.

All the details are documented in an article on controlling a Huanyang VFD and spindle from Linux CNC 2.8.