Just got $900 5hp Colombo with VFD, need advise about it...

[daniel]

Just got $900 3hp Colombo with VFD, need advise about it.....

It was supposedly a demo model and has only 8 to 10 hours on it.
Being that it was a demo model the cord between the spindle and the VFD is very short. So I need to know:

(1) Should I add wire to the cable on the spindle by spliceing in longer cable and soldering it? How should I make it longer?

(2) What special grounding needs to be done?

(3) The VFD has 3 cables on it. One for the 220v power, another that goes to the spindle, and a third which I'm guessing hooks to some control boxes. What if it doesn't hook to my control box? What do I do with the third cable?

Anything special I need to know?

[harold_weber]

I certainly would not spice a cable onto that short piece you have. Buy the proper length piece and replace the short piece. Belden makes VFD cable and larger industrial electrical supply houses will sell it by the foot. You need VFD cable because it it built to take the continuous flexing that such an application will have. Its like vacuum cleaner cord, many very fine wires make up each conductor to deal with all the flexing without breaking...............

The orange VFD cable that ShopBot supplies is very good because it has a very supple outer jacket, but I never found a source for it so I went with Belden.

[Brady Watson]

I second Harold's advice about getting the right cable.

FYI - that has a direct drive cooling fan...which can get a bit loud compared to an RS series with electric cooling fan.

-B

[daniel]

There's a lot of different VFD cable out there to choose from? Anybody know what kind I should get or should I contact Colombo?

[harold_weber]

Daniel, not sure where you are located, but the Colombo factory is in Italy.... from memory the US Colombo rep is PDS (Precision Drive Systems) in North Carolina, they used to have a branch in Michigan as well. I would expect any manufacturer's VFD cable would work, but the orange cable that ShopBot was using was the least stiff cable I've seen. If you ever decide to put on an E-Chain cable carrier you would probably want the orange colored VFD cable since it will bend to a smaller radius than the Belden cable.