Incorrect or missing data on cheap chinese VFDs and spindles

I have been unable to find the manual for this VFD (the HY02D211B). it appears you can’t even submit a question for it on the Amazon site. I’d love to see what they list as the input current requirements. Anyone have better luck?

The manual is a bit infuriating. But after a while you start to understand the broken English. They use the same manual for all of their models I think. I can attach it here if you can’t find it.

You can ask the seller a question on Amazon. I did. I did this a lot because their English leaves a bit to be desired so I had to get very specific with my questions. But HY always did answer. Mainly I was asking the information that was not labeled on the nameplate as Aiph5u was lamenting. There were some other settings I didn’t understand as well. Don’t expect too much help there though. I found lots of forums with people using this spindle and posting their settings.

Yes, it is a cheap Chinese spindle. That being said, it doesn’t cost what a nice German spindle does. Essentially the HY spindles are “the cleanest dirty shirts in the closet.”

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I have the 1.5kw 110 and 2.2kw 220. Both honestly work fine. I upgraded to the 220 mainly to take advantage of 1/2 inch bits… a 3 inch surfacing bit will make quick work of flattening slabs.

I bought a full conplement of 1/2 bits for general cnc use as well but honestly doubt ill ever get much use out of them on something the size of my journeyman. If I did full sheet goods we might be in business…

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Hey Ziggy,

I already linked it in the posting above, is this the right one?

That one doesn’t include the specifications for the 110V VFD’s. 220V and 380V only.

Hey Barry,

yes, I realized Echd’s version included the 100 V class models. Not that this would be of use to anyone, since there are only the same three sparse details in it as on the nameplate :frowning:.

Well this is interesting. Unlike their 220V VFDs, the part number and the label on the 110V VFD’s refer to the input power, not the motor power. The HY0D211B should be used with a 1.5 KW spindle maximum. It still needs a circuit with a minimum 25A breaker. Since this requires installing a special branch circuit anyway, I don’t understand the point of choosing “110V” circuits for higher powered equipment like this.

To run a 2.2 KW spindle one needs a 3 KW motor, with a minimum 35A breaker for a “110V” circuit.

here’s the thing the makita a lot of us use is 1/4 horse, so what is so bad about a 120volt spindle that up’s the game to 1.5 hp. that’s what 5 times the horsepower? is a lot quiete5r and more accurate what’s wrong with that? for not too much money and i don’t have to pay an electrician to put in a 220 line?

Hey Barry,

those are the Huanyang “B-T” Models with the step-up converter. They can convert 110 V to 220 V internally. Usually they are too expensive to make sense since in most cases you would simply use 240 V.

That a motor that produces 1.5 kW mechanical power at the shaft usually draws 2.2 kW apparent power is normal, but this is still the output side of VFD.

I still see neither input power nor input current of the VFD specified.

Hey Robert, hey all,

both the hand trim router and a spindle have advantages and disadvantages. Besides the Makita hand trim router first of all not being allowed by its manufacturer to be used in a stationary machine like a CNC and it was confirmed that you loose its warranty immediately as soon you do, I can try to list the pros and contras of both types of motor:

Hand router (universal motor)

Your hand trim router is a so-called Universal Motor (also called commutated series-wound motor, because it needs carbon-brush commutators to work and because its stator and its rotor coils are connected in series).

  • Pro: Such a motor has the advantage that you only need a simple cable to your domestic outlet to plug it in, because it is an alternating current (AC) motor for single phase electricity and its speed is independent of the frequency of the alternating current.

Besides of this, a universal motor has only disadvantages:

  • Contra:

    1. It is more complicated and therefore more expensive to be built as an induction motor
    2. It has a poor efficiency, 30–70% at its highest, which means it consumes more electric power and produces less usuable mechanical power (torque) as an induction motor
    3. It has a particularly unfavorable motor charachteristics, in particular for milling wood: When it has speed, it has no torque, but when it has torque, it has no speed. Unfortunately what you need for milling wood is high torque at high speed, which it typically can not deliver:

    BelastungskennlinieEinesUniversalmotors_rotated_with_english_added_var5_50pct
    – Source: Traute Meyer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (rotated and mirorred to reflect axes of Image 2 and with comments added by Aiph5u)

    Image 1: Motor characteristic (speed/torque diagram) of a Universal Motor (=the hand trim router): When you have torque, you have no speed, and if you have speed, you have no torque :frowning:.

    1. When you put a higher load on such a motor, it is slowed down.
    2. When such a motor runs slow, it gets hot (see warnings in your manual), up to the point where it begins to burn.

Spindle (induction motor)

A spindle, on the other hand, is an induction motor. The induction motor is wide spread in machinery and is considered as the workhorse in the industry. It has nearly only advantages:

  • Pro:

    1. It is simple to build, since it has only stator coils, but neither rotor coils, nor any carbon-brush commutators.
    2. It has an excellent efficiency, which means the biggest part of the current is transformed into mechanical power
    3. It is capable of a wide range of stable speed
    4. When put under mechanical load, it is not slowed down
    5. It will never be overloaded, or start to burn, because you always have to set the maximum current according to motor rating inside the VFD, so on emerging overload, the VFD will stop the spindle and if correctly wired to an emergency circuit, at the same time halt the g-code program in the CNC controller, so you can leave it alone without fear that it could burn your place down
    6. It has an excellent motor characteristic, which means, a constant torque over the entire speed range:

    Mechatron_Motor_characteristic_HFS-8022-24-ER20__with_added_comment_Constant_Torque_var4_50pct
    – Source: Mechatron HFS-8022-24-ER20 Datasheet (with comments added by Aiph5u)

    Image 2: Motor characteristic (speed/torque diagram) of a frequency-controlled Induction Motor (=spindle):
    A constant torque available over a wide speed range, and with excellent efficiency

  • Contra: The disadvantage of a spindle is, in order to be able to run one, you need a three-phase current with a variable frequency. This means, you forcibly need a variable frequency drive (VFD), which is an AC-to-DC-to-three-phase-AC inverter that can produce three-phase electricity with a variable frequency.

What I find important to say in this context, is that between these two extremes, there exist a third category that would be the best solution for hobbyists and semiprofessionals who just want to plug in. Unfortunately, I have no information about whether Onefinity has them on their radar and will provide an appropriate Z slider to use them with the Onefinity CNC.

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There is nothing wrong with it implicitly, it just happens to be a less efficient piece of equipment. In practical use that should not really matter for a onefinity user. With my 1.5kw 110v spindle the most amps I ever observed it pulling was 9, and that was with it on the same circuit as the 1F itself, and while doing pretty serious hogging with a 1.5 inch flattening bit (i use my onefinity as a planer quite a bit).

Now if you try and run one of the er20 equipped 110v “”“2.2kw”“” models on a standard 20A garage circuit I could see how you might potentially pop your breaker… if you do, it would have to be doing some heavy duty material removal, but I could see it happening.

However, if you possess the ability or means to run a 2.2kw spindle there is no downside at all, and the machinery costs the exact same generally. It is as a practical matter the absolutely superior option, but it may just be that it is better in a way that the average onefinity user may never need or care about.

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Hey Robert,

it is important to understand that for a specific amount of power (watts), on a lower voltage (volts), there need to flow more current (ampères).

A 2.2 kW VFD for 230 V (I have one) is rated with 24 A input current on single phase input. For the same 2.2 kW VFD, but on 120 V, you would need the double current on your circuit dimensioning (48 A), but it would still be the same power. Therefore, the more your device consumes, the better it is to choose the variant for a higher voltage. This is because the wire gauge needed, and the fuse (circuit breaker) dimensioning are not dependent on the power, but on the current.

So when running a device that has a lot of power on 120 V means higher current than you usually have at your circuit breaker, with the same power at 240 V you have half the current, half the ampères on the circuit breaker and half the thickness of the wires needed, so that’s why you usually better choose the higher voltage.

That is also the reason why the electricity that has to be sent over large distances is transformed into very high voltage: The higher the voltage, the lower the current (for the same power), and the less the effect of the wire resistance, and thus the less the power loss over the distance.

that’s what I meant in the other thread (here and here). I know that despite the fact that it is usually not recommendable to buy equipment for which you have no appropriate electrical supply circuit, many people (be it that they did not know it better) bought those 2.2 kW 110 V VFD/spindle kits and run them on thin cables and mingy fuses and I think many would not even think about it because they don’t use their machine in a way that they even come close to the power limits. The difference if you DO consider the things I tried to explain would be that you know that your equipment can draw more current than your circuit can deliver, and that you can decide to use it anyway, you would limit the current inside the VFD so that it would rather be the VFD that trips in case of higher mechanical load when milling, than your fuse (circuit breaker), because with a good safety wiring you can make that when the VFD trips the Onefinity Controller gets the pin 23 activated so the stepper motors stop to move immediately and your bit is saved, instead of a VFD whose circuit breaker tripped and a Onefinity CNC continuing to run and breaking your bit.

Also you can perfectly limit the current delivered to the spindle inside the VFD, you even got to do that anyway since it’s one of the first settings you do when you set it up.

PS: @Echd: I assumed you measure this on the input side of the VFD, between wall outlet and VFD, is this correct?

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Hey Echd, hey all,

Test to drive your VFD/spindle to its limit

just in case if someone wants to test under which mechanical load the circuit breaker blows with a 120 V spindle on a 30 A circuit (or simply when your VFD will correctly trip due to mechanical overload), here someone¹ shows the ampères in the VFD display at the output (=spindle) side, and how their 220 V 2.5 kW spindle is driven to draw up to 10 A current from the output of the VFD (video): The test consists of driving a 10 mm 3-flute aluminium end mill through an 6061 aluminium block with 1000 mm/min feedrate, 10 mm depth of cut and 8 mm width of cut (for US customary users: 13/32" 3-flute end mill through an 6061 aluminium block with 40 IPM, 13/32" DOC, 5/16" WOC).

Usually a 2.2 kW 230 V spindle is rated 8 A (in S1 duty cycle), the 2.5 kW Jianken ATC spindle in the video even only rated 6.6 A (for explanation see here). A 200-V-class VFD for 2.2 kW spindles can deliver up to 11 A (in CT mode) and is rated to draw up to 22 A at its input in this mode then.

So, now assuming a VFD/spindle with half the voltage, which means, with 120 V, where you have half the voltage thus double the currents, you should be able to make the spindle draw 20 A with this test, and thus make the VFD to draw over 40 A on the input, thereby using this test in the video to blow a 30 A circuit breaker :slight_smile:

Seriously, I would better limit the output current inside the VFD and make that in case of high mechanical load rather the VFD trips than the circuit breaker blows, as already explained above. But just in case… :slight_smile:

Another test possibly could be to rough with a 8 mm roughing bit in black locust, one of the hardest woods in Northern America, 1/2" deep at 110 ipm, as shown here (they use a 6.6 kW HSD spindle on a Hitachi WJ200 VFD…)

 


1.) See also their impressing “cheap chinese spindle vs. expensive chinese spindle” noise and vibration comparison test

Yes, my numbers were using a killawatt style meter. I do not know what the output amperage was at that time for the spindle.

I bought my spindle and VFD from Germany, mechatron do a 2 pole spindle and of course much more expensive spindles, they’re basic has been in use by me for 3 months with no issues, the speeds are all correct as I tested them with a tachometer, it is worth paying more, if you use your machine to generate income. Although my Chinese spindle and VFD also worked fine apart from it had no thrust bearing and would lose nearly 1mm in depth on some jobs because the spindle axle actually was free to move, due to not having a thrust bearing.

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Hey Lee,

thanks for reporting this. Did you buy a Standard Series (HFS) or a more expensive HFP model?

Hey Echd,

probably rather low :slight_smile:

But I think that is the situation of hundreds of users who bought a VFD that in fact is rated and perfectly able to draw too much current from their supply circuit, but do never become aware of this fact, because 1. the maximum VFD input rating is willingly omitted by the cheap chinese manufacturer both in the manual and on the nameplate, and 2. they never run the spindle in a load range where it could come close to the limits. When I look at the projects in “Post up them projects”, I can imagine that many projects probably don’t really demand the milling motor.

That’s what the cheap chinese VFD manufacturers hope for, that no one will find out what the input rating specification should have been on those 110 V 2.2+ kW kits – and what the serious manufacturers avoid, by producing either no 100 V class VFDs at all, or only up to 0.75 kW like Hitachi does.

But did you have a look at the test I described above / video I mentioned above? It’s not that difficult to drive the VFD to the limit by mechanical load, if you really want to. I think it is useful for anybody to have a feeling of how far this limit is.

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HFS for about £800, then you have import duty,

Sucks a bit but they provide cable, VFD is also already set up,

Hey Lee,

I bought the HFS-8022-24-ER20 with KG5000 and I think it’s a lot of money for many people, I spent that money because I want to rely on the hardware for professional purposes, and hope the rest of the machine hardware will not disappoint me.

I bought the Omron 3G3MX2-AB022-E VFD separately from a CNC supplier because I can program it myself and I also make my spindle cables myself because I own the crimp tool for the turned contacts in the Phoenix M17 Connector

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Hey all,

here another 110 V example with the input current (Ampères) rating omitted.