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Background

If you are troubleshooting a spindle issue on your PCNC 440, the Battery Test, is a good way to rule out your BLDC being at fault.

What You Need

  • 1.5v battery (any AA,AAA, or C battery will work)

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  • Some lengths of wire

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Warning! Turn the machine off before touching any wiring of the spindle.

 Before you remove any wires from the plug to the spindle, take a picture that shows what wire goes where. 

This will be needed when you rewire the plug. 

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Battery Test

  1.  Unplug the 8 position green plug and remove the 301(+5V), 302(SV), 300(COM), and 306(EN) wires from it. 

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  1. Take a small piece of wire and fasten one end in position #5, where the 306(EN) wire was.  

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  1. Take a longer piece of wire and twist one end to the free end of the small piece of wire and fasten both in position #3, where the 300(COM) wire was.

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  1. Take a another longer piece of wire and fasten one end in position #2, where the 302(SV) wire was.

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  1. Make sure the spindle is clear of any body parts/tooling.  Bring the machine out of E-Stop and press the

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  1. RESET button in PathPilot.

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  1. Touch the longer wire from position #3, where the 300(COM) wire was, and hold it to the negative side of the battery

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  1. Touch the other longer piece of wire from position #2, where the 302(SV) wire was, and hold it to the positive side of the battery.

 

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If the spindle driver is good the spindle should start spinning in the 2600-3000 range (High Belt) and the spindle driver LCD screen will read numbers in the same 2600-3000 range.  If the numbers are zero and the spindle is not spinning then the driver is bad.  If the spindle driver is showing numbers in the 2600-3000 range but the spindle is not spinning in the 2600-3000 range (High Belt) or not spinning at all, check the spindle motor to see if it failed. https://tormach.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PCNC440/pages/4012114285/PCNC+440+Spindle+Won+t+Turn#Measure-the-motor-resistance-(%CE%A9)