Thank you, Michael, for your efforts.  That is the 110V version of the unit that I bought, and the instructions illustrated are the exact ones that were shown in the listing by my reseller.  The reviews are, unfortunately, no source of further info. In fact, one reviewer complains that no manual was included in the pack and is sending it back, so is obviously oblivious to the instructions hidden in plain sight in the advert!

As it happens, I just went out to the garage to retrieve the camera and switched the spindle motor on again, only to find that it worked OK. Maybe it’s an overheat problem, though I find that hard to believe, as it was initially only on for a couple of minutes at most.

The search continues ……..

John

Wow!  I didn’t expect so many responses.  Let me address them in turn.

Simon.  I suspect that the symptoms will disappear as yours did.  I will certainly share any error code explanations that I discover.

JohnHaine.  I readily admit to being an electrical/electronics expert – far from it, but the blurb which accompanies the kit further confuses me.  The driver is a BLDC motor driver that supplies 3 phases to the motor which has the three-phase wires attached via a screwed plug.  So, I don’t know, I wasn’t aware that DC motors could be 3-phased.

Robert.  The model I’m using is the version which takes 230V AC input – the M2 suffix indicates that, so no 11V AC was harmed in the installation.  But thanks for your input, anyway,

Bayzle.  My new mini lathe operates in exactly the mode that you describe, i.e. turn the speed control to zero before switching on, which is what I did.  Your second point regarding it being an engraver motor has rather been superseded by events.  To my surprise, I received an email response from the seller this morning, giving me a link to the user manual, which I have now downloaded.  Unfortunately it is no more enlightening that the details given on eBay.  No error codes mentioned at all.  They did, however, state:

Error 03 represents over-current
Error 04 represents an unexpected stop of the rotor

The engineer told me that if the 04 error occurs during startup,you need to check if the motor wiring is normal(you can also take a photo to show the wirings,i will send to engineer to help you check again). If the error appears during operation,that could also be a problem with the controller.

Regarding overcurrent alarm, we first need to confirm whether the spindle is in good condition, please see the attachment picture, you can use multimeter to test any 2 pin numerical, then stay above 10 seconds, you can record these three values, then send me three values, our engineer will help you to check whether this spindle is good or not.

My italics.  They also sent a picture of the wiring for the motor connections, but it omits to say whether it;s a view of the plug or the socket.  I pretty sure it’s the male part on the motor.

I have yet to conduct those resistance checks, that’s a job for later.

I will report back when I’ve done the checks.

Thanks all for your input.  I’ll get to the bottom of this, eventually.

John

Hmmm…..

We are in danger of muddying the waters, here.  While I appreciate the efforts of those contributors trying to explain BLDC motors to me, I fear that the actual means by which they function is only of partial interest.  My main requirement is to feed DC volts in at one end of the motor and get rotational movement out of the other end, without generating fault codes in the driver.  What goes on between the ends of the motor is of academic interest only, I’m afraid.

Oh dear, that sounds awfully ungrateful of me, but be assured, I appreciate all the time and effort everyone is putting into their replies.

The seller has got back to me following my response to their query about the motor winding resistances.  All three windings give roughly similar results at 3.6Ω. That proves that at least the motor is sound. They even supplied a short list of error codes, which I append below for the benefit of others following in my footsteps:

Error 00=encryption chip abnormality
Error 01=high voltage
Error 02=undervoltage
Error 03=overcurrent
Error 04=rotor unexpectedly stops
Error 05=Other exceptions

I have come to the conclusion that the wiring diagram for the plug, as supplied in the item description is wrong, as the unused pin is in different position to the one in the diagram which they supplied for me to check the windings and is reflected in one of the photos in the first review on Amazon to which Michael Gilligan’s first post refers.  Thanks, Michael. It was this that alerted me to the mislabelling of the installation diagram.  The other possibility is that the internal wiring of the motor plug has been mixed during manufacture.

I have some rewiring to do this morning, which I hope will sort my out problem.  If I don’t electrocute myself, I’ll be back to let you know how I got on.  I bet you can’t wait!

John

To hopefully wrap this up, I’m pleased to report that the replacement driver arrived by courier this morning.  I have wired it up and switched it on.  (Not easy with fingers crossed!)  Happy to inform you that it worked first time, responding to the speed control and running smoothly for a minute or two before I switched it off.  Had a spot of lunch, then went out to make a video of it.  That went well; all performing as it should, so switched it off at the mains.  Then I noticed that, as the internal capacitors lost their charge, I got an error code 2 come up on the display, (Err=2 is undervoltage).  Somewhat taken aback, I switched on again and everything was running OK.  Figuring that the undervoltage was what one might expect with the mains no longer applied, I decided to ignore it.  Time will tell if it was wise so to do.

The rest of the afternoon will be spent editing and publishing the video.

And they all lived happily ever after.

John

And finally …………….

I’ve had a follow-up message from the driver manufacturer in which they state:

“We have taken the old driver back to the factory for testing, and the engineers said that after testing, they preliminarily determined that it was caused by inaccurate ADC acquisition due to the filtering capacitor, this is a hardware issue, they will replace the filter capacitor with a new one.”

They have further tests to make after that, but I think, and hope, that it absolves me from being the cause.  I admit to not knowing what ‘inaccurate ADC acquisition due to the filtering capacitor’ means, and am happy to remain in ignorance.

John