Control box not starting spindle

[plemon]

When my shopbot was first assembled two weeks ago the spindle control box (VFD) would not light up when pressing the reset button. There would be a faint click but nothing more.

I opened the box (after shutting off mains) and checked all the connections, pressing everything firmly. Nothing seemed loose but the next time I pressed the reset button the faint click was replaced with a rewarding Clunk and the VFD box lit up and my shopbot was working fine.

Unfortunately, the problem has reoccured and pressing the contacts again makes no difference. I have had the power box open when pressing the reset button to see what happens. The DC power supplys have green lights shining, the leds on the board where the dc lead connects are lit up, and the switches are clicking over when I press the reset button. The only thing is that the stepper motors are not lighting up.

I'm getting hold of an electrician today but was wondering if people thought the problem was electrical.

As a bit of background; the assembly instructions say to have 2 circuits going into the control box. I have had 2 electricians study the circuit diagrams and both came to the conclusion that one was sufficient. I had it wired up with one with the option of getting a second one if there was a problem. I suppose my long winded question is; is this a loose/bad connector issue or could this be related to the single circuit wiring? I was running fine for the last couple of weeks, powering on each day.

Cheers,

Phil

[Gary Campbell]

Phil...
This a perfect question for SB tech support. ESPECIALLY since its a new machine. Give them a call.

[plemon]

Hey all,

Just my like I had coffee with a friend with electrical experience. He discovered that the contacts on the top right of the control box have little reset switches that had no reset. He pressed them in with a screwdriver (there are 4 of them) and bingo, everything worked again.

He did note that the diagrams for the control box and the wiring instructions were old and a lot differen than the actual box. He wasn't impressed by that, noting that it just results in longer times for problems to be sorted out, and when you have to hire a sparky to do the work, its costing you more.

Phil

P.S. In relation to out of date manuals, I might add that I came across this issue during assembly and emailed support who promptly got back to me saying that yes my instructions were out of date. However, they didn't actually send me the updated instructions. Hmmmm.