VFD Dust Control

[Andrew Frandsen]

For all those who have changed out their drives to an aftermarket VFD, what have you done to control the dust? Have you had any issues with the drives? Are there any maintenance regimens to adhere to? My VFD is mounted on the wall behind the headstock. I have wrapped it with filter media but I doubt this is doing a whole lot. My concern is that the internal fan will always be drawing really fine dust through no matter what.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Dennis Ford]

I mounted mine in a metal enclosure on the lathe but not sure that was necessary. Powermatic and Jet lathes have theirs mounted behind the headstock with no protection from dust. With yours mounted on the wall it will be easy to blow out the dust once in a while. At work we often wrapped motors with filter media when sandblasting nearby but motors with internal temperature monitoring showed that the filter media restricted the airflow enough to raise the winding temperature by 20 deg F even when the media was clean. Your filter media may not restrict the airflow that much but it is worth thinking about.