Thread: No weld grinder. Troubleshoot me.

Speed control is one of the most important features you can get if you only have one grinder because it has to do so many different jobs. DC controllers used to be the big deal, now VFDs are getting better for less money.

The best wheels you can afford for the contact surfaces are the other. There is a lot of room to move around inside "what you can afford" that still gets the job done.

One other thing to consider on the NWG setup. Have a routine protocol to tighten things up, or use loctite or the other variations to solidify your assembly. Vibration will eventually cause stuff to loosen and cause problems. Like any tool, they all have their foibles.

Nope, not working. I just walked away from it months ago in disgust. I did use solid core 10awg wire, but that shouldn't have anything to do with it. I know basic electricity like residential wiring and so on, but don't know where to start on troubleshooting. I've been meaning to take the motor to an electrical motor "shop" to have it tested, but haven't. I just felt that I should be able to wire 220 in and hook up the three output leads to the motor. If it's rotating the wrong direction, swap two wires. I have zero movement, zero "sound", and thankfully zero smoke.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Nope, not working. I just walked away from it months ago in disgust. I did use solid core 10awg wire, but that shouldn't have anything to do with it. I know basic electricity like residential wiring and so on, but don't know where to start on troubleshooting. I've been meaning to take the motor to an electrical motor "shop" to have it tested, but haven't. I just felt that I should be able to wire 220 in and hook up the three output leads to the motor. If it's rotating the wrong direction, swap two wires. I have zero movement, zero "sound", and thankfully zero smoke.

Three wires go from the converter to the motor, plus a ground. The incoming wires to the converter should be the two hots to the first two inputs. The incoming ground, or common, connects to the ground connector, NOT where the third hot in a 3 phase situation would connect. Could this be your problem? Otherwise, it has to be a defective motor or a defective converter. It might help if you could send me a photograph of the connection bar on the converter.
Skipnord

Hey there. I used the FM50 series TECO VFDs on a project at work, which are the next bigger model from the one you posted the link for. I recall having to jumper some of the control inputs to make them run. I looked at the manual for the EV series which you have, and it seemed to me that perhaps the S4 input is set up for E stop input (page 17), which in most drives you would cause an e stop if left unconnected. Also, it seems like S5 might be factory set to do Base Block, which would also stop the drive (page 21). A couple questions for you (if you feel like debugging the drive that is!):

- does the drive display light up?
- if so, what does it display?

I also saw that the drive defaults to 10 Hz out of the box; depending on your motor and load its possible it may not actually start spinning at 10 Hz.

-Holly

Originally Posted by shooter74743

I followed Brad's lead and used this VFD: 2HP 230 Volt -- USE AS A PHASE CONVERTER PLUS GET VARIABLE SPEED, Model JNEV-202-H1, Single Phase Input ONLY, Three Phase Output, variable frequency drive, variable frequency drives, ac drive, vfd, afd, frequency drive, drive, inverter, adjustable sp

Let me get back out there and power it up to answer your questions. Should take 30 seconds to answer your question once I am home. Thanks Holly in advance.

Holly,
Ok, when I flip the 220v bkr the LED flashes 220, then 60. The fan comes on, but nothing at the motor at all. I can press the down arrow on the control pad and the 60 will go down in .1 increments or up in .1 increments to 60...that's it. I flip the bkr off and the fan runs for a couple seconds and then powers down. That's all I can give you as that's all it does...

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Holly,
Ok, when I flip the 220v bkr the LED flashes 220, then 60. The fan comes on, but nothing at the motor at all. I can press the down arrow on the control pad and the 60 will go down in .1 increments or up in .1 increments to 60...that's it. I flip the bkr off and the fan runs for a couple seconds and then powers down. That's all I can give you as that's all it does...

Hmm... seems like it should be working then. I don't suppose you have another three phase motor around in a tool, or sitting on a shelf, or in a friend's shop? You could hook up to see if it works? That's what I would do at this point. If you had access to another known good drive to see if it worked on the motor in your grinder, that would be another useful piece of information. If you don't have either of those things, I would maybe see about an exchange for another drive; possible that one is broken. Sorry it wasn't the simple thing I thought it might be

If you felt like taking a picture of the motor nameplate, I could just take a look at it to see if something jumps out. But doubtful that would bring anything new to light.

My converter is not the same as yours, but - on mine, what you describe would be the cycle setting mode. To get the motor to run at that point, you would have to push the "enter" button. Do you have anything like that? Also, once you get it running, you will have to set the cycle function to higher that 60. 60 cycles will give you the max rpm on your motor. To go higher, you have to raise the default 60 to around 100. You can set it higher, but that would be too hard on your motor. I hope this helps.

Taking both the motor and VFD to an electric motor place today to find out what is going on...

Good luck! Let us know what you find out.