My Journeyman X-50 works. To do the work I want, I needed a spindle before Onefinity was ready to move past routers. (I bought a water-cooled Mechatron with a Hitachi VFD). After getting brass dust in the bearings I had to add “purge air”. My BB controller is adequate, and Masso has a steep learning curve, so I didn’t buy one. The redline Controller comes with improved motors for the CNC. So it might be a good idea, but:
Today I spoke with Onefinity Tech Support (very helpful person) and learned that my wishes still aren’t in the Onefinity business model. Onefinity supports the Redline Controller with a Redline spindle. They make no predictions about that controller with any other spindle and have no advice on wiring connections or VFD settings. But the Redline is air-cooled and isn’t configured for “purge air”.
I’m strong on the science of health care but weak on the science of physics. It took a friend who does industrial automation to figure out the wiring and settings for my VFD with the BB. Will Redline help make a controller upgrade practical for me without also selling me a spindle? Are there Forum users with that interest or experience?
Firstly, I would be surprised if the redline vfd can’t work with other spindles, the stumbling block may be that 1F will not support other combinations so will not comment, which has always been the case.
I believe the key compatibility to address is the Comms between the VFD and the Controller: Modbus or signal wire, the former is tricky to solve without good manuals/instructions. The connection from the VFD to the Spindle I expect to be the usual four wire job. Manual reading will help understand this plus some better feedback than I’m giving here.
Our controller will work regardless of what spindle is hooked up to it. That being said, we have only tested our controller with a makita router and the Redline Spindle kit. You would have to get with the manufacturer of that spindle to figure out how to make it work with our controller. That being said, our controller takes the same kind of cable that the buildbotoics uses, just modified on the controller end. So the VFD end of the cable is the same. Just with that logic, I would imagine it would be plug and play compatible, but without testing it ourselves, we can’t promise anything. As far as Onefinity saying you have to own a Redline Spindle Kit in order to purchase the Controller, that is something you will need to discuss with them. We don’t sell the controller, we simply make it directly for Onefinity and provide to them for their machines and customers.
As I said, I’m weak on industrial control circuits (hence my questions):
Doesn’t the Spindle get information solely from the VFD, and nothing directly from the controller?
The BuildBotics or Redline Controller sends instructions for “On”, “Reverse”, “Off” and “Frequency” (aka speed). It uses 485+ and 485- to do that, right? (Those are the only wires/connections currently linking my BB to my VFD). I gather that the Redline Controller uses Analog signals (instead of BB’s Digital signals). That suggests that Redline will use different ‘screws’ in the VFD control connections than BB uses. (And that isn’t what Redline said about “…the VFD end of the cable is the same”). Further, I guess the Hitachi VFD will need changes in the parameters in order to ‘understand’ what it hears from the Redline Controller. The 1) connections on the VFD and 2) parameter changes are the parts that confuse/concern me the most (because I don’t really understand what I’m doing when I change them).
3. The VFD forwards Run, Reverse, Stop and Frequency messages (and no others) to the spindle. XYZ instructions for the stepper motors is in language/formats that Redline and 1F already agreed on. (Right?)