Hello, Team Onefinity. I know that there’s already a lot of information out here about upgrading to a Huanyang 2.2kw spindle but I’d like to offer a perspective from a machinist’s point-of-view.
As a machinist, not an electrician, I discovered right away that there’s things about plugging in upgrades that I didn’t even know that I didn’t know, things like EMI (electromagnetic interference) and how that can dramatically, negatively affect the signals being sent to the axes steppers. Blatantly put, a machine experiencing EMI can freak out, destroying tooling, work pieces and, at worst, cause serious physical harm to the operator. As a machinist, I had to learn to have a little more respect for the electrical side of things.
The first thing I did in anticipation of receiving the spindle / vfd delivery was hit youtube for reference on how to effectively install it all. The most popular how-to video on the subject was a very concise tutorial aimed directly at adding a 2.2kw spindle to the onefinity so I soaked up as much info as I could from that.
Fortunately, however, I also ran across a related how-not-to video that inspired me to dig a little deeper into why I can’t just cut a standard drop cord and use it as the spindle / vfd cabling. EMI. If I had stuck with the initial video, I would have invited some potential hazards into the mix that I wasn’t even aware of at the time, hazards that I don’t think the video creator was even aware of.
This isn’t to trash-talk Ben, either. I believe that good people share what they know with the best of intentions and I think that’s exactly what Ben did. However, considering the machine moves on 3 axes and is about to have a 24k rpm spindle on steroids going along for the ride, we’re better off knowing what we’re dealing with than just diving right in.
For starters, a drop cord of whatever flavor is not going to be good enough for you. You deserve better. They’re not shielded so they’re just introducing EMI to your system. Will they work? Sure but function doesn’t necessarily mean safe by itself. For example, that cord could be spewing so much EMI that you lose signal on the Z stepper, crash the axis into your work or, worse, have a busted end mill thrown at you or someone else in your shop. These are legitimate scenarios, ones that you can totally mitigate by not cutting machinist corners. We tend to want to get the job done and only concern ourselves with if we can hit our tolerance marks but let EMI become a consideration, something else you need to mill right down to a very tight tolerance.
To punctuate the point, I ran a dry test of the upgrade with basic cabling (the aforementioned hacked-up drop cable) and my X-axis let me know something was wrong when it lost signal. The proximity to the unshielded drop cable was apparently enough to dirty the signal and cause the axis to stop receiving data. My configuration had the axis cable zip-tied to the spindle cable near the X-axis plug which likely contributed to the increased signal degradation. It’s what we do without thinking about it that can affect outcomes.
So, if we’re going to make stupid choices for cable management, let’s at least do so with shielded cabling so that stupidity doesn’t have to arrive at tragedy.
Now that my safety speech is out of the way, let’s talk about how the machinist went ahead to accommodate for a couple of things that needed attention: the stock Z-axis stepper not being able to hold the increased weight of the spindle upgrade and the spindle cooling system.
So, the first thing I noticed after installation of the spindle was that the Z-axis crashed in idle. The 178in/oz stepper didn’t have enough holding torque to keep the axis from bottoming out so I did what any decent machinist would do and tossed on a 425in/oz stepper in its place. Let me be completely frank here: it’s probably overkill but it’s definitely got the torque required to do its job. End of discussion on that.
On to the cooling system, some guys were content to run out of a bucket. I didn’t like that idea, mostly because I have dogs roaming about and I don’t want there to ever be a chance that I leave the lid off and expose them to coolant. What I did was modify a popular kitchen container by installing a couple brass bulkhead fittings for the tubing into the lid. An entire gallon of 50/50 automotive coolant fit snugly within with the Huanyang pond pump and the container sits on a shelf (to which I plan to attach the container to further secure it against accidental spillage).
I have the VFD, onefinity controller and coolant pump on a single power block to facilitate emergency shutdown of “all things CNC” at a moment’s notice and to effectively power-up and power-down everything at once just for simplicity’s sake (I’d totally forget to power-up the cooling system if it didn’t already start with the VFD / controller). Aside from the obvious gain in safety, having the spindle’s cooling system operational whenever the spindle is capable of running was the priority.
I’m also fully intending on turning an old gaming computer tower case into a control box to hold the onefinity controller, VFD, power block with remote switch and various other relevant switches / controls. The thing’s been collecting dust for a couple years and it seems just the right size to become home to some rogue electronics.
I found that setting up the VFD and breakout board adapter was pretty straight forward so I do, indeed, have control of the spindle from the controller / software. One thing to note is that the spindle does take some time to get up to speed so you’ll want to add a GO4 command at the beginning of all your programs to facilitate an appropriate start delay or you’ll totally end up starting the job / cutting into material several seconds before the spindle is actually ready to do so.
I also highly recommend the exact spindle / VFD combination Onefinity has linked in the description for the 80mm spindle mount accessory. I also highly recommend not going with air-cooled. Those tend to be much louder and also tend to heat up far sooner than water-cooled. Some of our jobs can run upwards of 24 hours or more. I really wouldn’t advise putting an air-cooled spindle through that level of torture. I can say with experience that this particular spindle is disgustingly quieter than a trim router. I can hear it above the VFD’s fan at 24k rpms but, at around 18k, I don’t even notice it’s spinning. Granted, that’s not to say that it’s not loud when actually milling… because it is, at least the tooling is. There’s no getting around that without a decent enclosure (also on the list of things to get done).
To sum, the spindle upgrade did add a lot of extra weight to the gantry but, aside from the stock stepper not holding idle torque due to the 3x weight load, the rest of the system hasn’t batted a lash. The upgrade was fairly straight forward and fairly simple. There is some soldering involved if you want to ensure the safety of your 3-phase upgrade but, all-in-all, I wouldn’t say that this qualifies as something requiring excessive mastery of various industries to effectively pull off.
As an aside, I’m even further convinced that I made the correct choice in desktop CNC after this upgrade. Any deviation from stock, with regards to torque, is a risk to the integrity of the system. I effectively tripled the weight on the gantry and the torque specs on the Z-axis and noted absolutely no affect on rigidity. This is a Woodworker X-35 (Original) with Stiffy that continues to prove itself capable of much more than wood carving. I’ll also say that I wouldn’t dare try any of this with comparable desktop brands because they look like they’d just fold right up under the pressure… while this Onefinity just keeps asking for more.
If you have any questions on component sourcing, assembly or whether or not I think I’ve pretty much lost my mind in general over the years, hit me up in the comments.
) I use a aluminum fuel cell for my tank to allows it to conduct heat better than plastic and also has a spot where I can put ice in… never had to thus far. Some people use ‘chillers’ which have a radiator and a fan to remove heat (better ones will use refrigerant and operate like a refrigerator and can reduce the water temp below ambient temp)
