which VFD (and what else?) needed for Delta DJ 20 jointer

[Bob Riefer]

Got it running forward, and light switch works! Other switch will not. Ok to just stick with the light switch?

[Dan Friedrichs]

Yep, nothing wrong with the lightswitch.

[Bob Riefer]

Awesome. You guys really have been so helpful and patient. Much appreciated

Last question for now:
The main screen says “50”. Should I set that to “60”?

[Ron Selzer]

if the 50 is referring to the Hertz then yes

[Matt Day]

If you have the remote switch turned on, likely the on/off button at the VFD will be disabled. Stick with the light switch, or as I’ve said emergency stop/mushroom switch works good too and is a little safer.

I started looking into changing the frequency to 60 but haven’t gotten there yet.

How did you wire the light switch?

[Bob Riefer]

To recap... I have a 3-phase DJ20 jointer and purchased this specific VFD (Lapond ST100S1.5B which is basically suitable for < 1.5 hp motor like I have) in order to be able to power it from 20 amp receptacle/220 power/single phase. The VFD cost $86 at the time of this post.

Here's the wiring / setup that I have now:

Inside the jointer cabinet, opposite side from the wood chip chute, I installed a wood block that the VFD now hangs from. I have blocked the top side of the wood chips chute and am connected to 3hp dust collector via a 6" duct, so my hope is that the area where the VFD is installed will stay "clean" (enough), and I think ventilation is plenty. Materials for this step were all shop scraps. $0.

20 amp receptacle (2-pole breaker, 220 power) connects to the jointer through 12-3 wire. I have the 2 hots wired to L1 and L2 on the VFD (and ground to ground on the VFD). For this power cord, I purchased a 12/3 heavy duty extension cord and added my own plug end to match wall receptacle. $30 for extension cord and male plug.

The 3-phase motor wire has the three non-ground wires connected to the U, V, W terminals on the VFD (and ground to ground). Initially, my machine was running in reverse, so I swapped two of those non-ground wires (in my case, I swapped red and black) and now it runs forward.

For the light switch (which I had in my inventory already from a past project, $0), I used some light gauge wire (on-hand wire that I found to be small enough to fit in the tiny terminal ports on the VFD) and connected one wire to each light switch terminal (and one to ground on the light switch). The other end of one of those wires went into the VFD terminal DI1, and the other wire was connected to COM on the VFD (and lastly, ground to ground).

Programming the VFD...
- When you hit the "program" button, the screen will flash which menu you are in (e.g. F4, F0, etc.)
- Using the + and - keys you can advance to other menus (e.g. F4 + will take you to F5 etc.)
- Hitting ENT (probably short for "enter") then takes you into the menu where you can navigate to sub menus in the same manner
- The manual takes some time to learn and understand, but basically gives you things that you can set within each sub menu

In this case, the most important one is so set the VFD to recognize that you're using a switch...
'- Menu/sub-menu = F4-00 which controls the DI1 terminal where the switch is connected. You want to set this to a value of 1 (which means switching this terminal will make the motor "forward run")


Other things to set..
- Later today, I will set the Hz setting to 60 Hz (vs. the default 50), and there are a few other menu areas where you can tell the VFD about your motor (such as RPMs and voltage etc.).... it seems like setting these could only be helpful, so I'll take the time to do that - all information that is available on the motor plate.

- And, I think that one parameter that can be adjusted is how fast the motor starts up. Mine is starting up really slow now (like over 20 seconds) so I'm going to try to bring that down to something more reasonable (thinking like 5 seconds would be good for motor and not obnoxiously slow for me waiting to do work).


I'll file this success under the "It takes a village" folder of my personal learning curve. As usual, the knowledgeable, patient, and helpful crew here has helped a fellow woodworker along the path. Hopefully this recap post is found by others in the future to help their learning curve too.

[Ron Selzer]

I have been successful in not setting the motor parameters in the past, however I had one recently that had to have all the numbers set correctly to get over 35% speed.
5 seconds for ramp up and ramp down on a jointer sounds good, I use 60-300 seconds on larger fans and pumps
sounds like you have it all figured out
good luck
Ron

[Bob Riefer]

Thanks Ron! The default RPM's on this VFD appears to be 1/2 what the motor spec RPMs states, so that got me to thinking it's worth adjusting as many of those specs as possible. But, that's just me thinking it through (not based on any true/deep understanding of VFDs).

I'm hoping my rudimentary / deliberate style of explaining the details (post 51 above) will help others. I had a lot of translating and thinking and watching videos to get to the point where I could explain it like that - may be more accessible to other newbies.

[Matt Day]

Bob - thanks for the detailed reply!

[Bill Dufour]

Does the motor or vfd make a high pitched whine when running or coming up to speed? If not nothing to worry about.
How long does it take to coast down to a stop(also 20 seconds?).
Leave the machine running and turn on a radio and tv and make sure there is no interference.
Bill D

[Bob Riefer]

Does the motor or vfd make a high pitched whine when running or coming up to speed? If not nothing to worry about.
How long does it take to coast down to a stop(also 20 seconds?).
Leave the machine running and turn on a radio and tv and make sure there is no interference.
Bill D

The VFD has a nice quiet cooling fan that runs during operation (and shuts off automatically about 3 seconds after use), no odd sounds of any sort.

Yes, jointer coasting to stop in about 20 seconds as well. That doesn't bother me as much as the start up.

Radio/TV test didn't produce anything odd.

[Matt Day]

You can likely stop the cutterhead in 2 seconds with no harm to anything. And it’s not exactly coasting to a stop. If it takes 20 seconds it’s because it’s programmed to do that.

[Bob Riefer]

The drive belt was “slapping” a little momentarily during start up at 3 seconds so I made it 5 seconds which solved it. Installing new knives and then I’m done!

[Bob Riefer]

For good measure, and a good laugh...

I was so thrilled to have made it over this mountain.

All I needed to do was swap out the knives and get back to woodworking.

Setup, ready to do the task. Not particularly looking forward to it, but also not dreading it either. Just takes some patience.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHH!

My damn set of metric wrenches are too thick to fit into the slot in the cutter head to loosen the bolts that hold the knives in.

There's "Murphy's Law", and now there's "Riefer's Law" I guess.

Hopefully my Amazon order gets to me before the world shuts down even more.

LOL

[Matt Day]

Could always grind them a bit to thin them down. I’ve done that a number of times, though not to my primary set of wrenches. Most of us have accumulated all kinds of extras that are good to sacrifice to these kinds of jobs.