Hi
First post - complete novice to CNC but this forum and the positive support of the people within it was one of the reasons I purchased a Shapeoko 3.
Been tinkering around after an enjoyable build - still haven’t powered up the spindle yet - but have done the “Hello World” and some alignment setups. Next job is to build a enclosure.
Last night was playing around with understanding Carbide Motion - testing the rapid moves and Jogging and just getting a feel for how to control the machine in “air mode” when the machine just died. Carbide Motion lost connection and would not reconnect. I checked all the connections and all seemed good, did the usually power off/on - even tried UGS in case Carbide Motion had a hiccup. Next I got out the voltmeter and found no volts on the DIN plug from the psu - there is a helpful schematic on the underside of the psu brick itself with the pin out.
The green LED as still on the psu but nothing at the DIN plug end. I broke into the inline switch using a screwdriver( power was off) to prise open the casing and there was one of the red wires from the switch floating around in mid air!
The soldering on the wires within the switch was horrible. Just a blob on the wire itself - but nothing connecting it to the switch terminals. I cut the ends off all the wires, desoldered the terminals ( well the solder just kinda fell off!) and re-soldered the wires back into the switch again and then replaced the casing. I was relieved to find I was back in business again!
I’m pleased this happened during some testing and not anything special and I look forward to making something soon.
Thanks to all the folks here who have made CNC understandable for me! I hope this post helps someone else if they fall into a similar situation.
Gary