Is there any expected spindle maintenance with the Carbide 3D spindles. I’ve noticed as of late my Carbide 3D Spindle on occasion has started making a higher pitch squeaky sound above the normal humming sounds that increases as RPM increases, almost like if a bearing needs to be greased, it’s not consistent though as it comes and goes. This is my first spindle and was wondering if one needs to do any maintenance on these like bearing replacements/clean and grease, etc… Did about 8 hours straight yesterday and it seemed to get a little more frequent as time went on.
I’ve had to send in my VFD not long ago and cannot imaging being without my spindle again for a lengthy amount of time, it’s just that nice having it so if I can do preventive maintenance to avoid issues I’d like to know what I need to do. I kept feeling the spindle to see if it was getting hot but it remained cool throughout the session.
Thoughts/comments, something I should look into more or just keep running it without worry?
@WillAdams sounds good, email sent out to support and I inserted the following link C3D spindle noise for there reference. Hopefully if this turns out to be an RMA it’s quicker then my VFD a few months back. On the return trip it got stuck at a FedEx location for an extra 2-3 weeks and currently getting ready for spring/summer sales/markets so loosing the spindle for an extended period of time will be unfortunate. I have the C3D router to fall back on again but it’s really not the same experience or as enjoyable once you experience the benefits of a spindle.
(edit: in the video at the end when the spindle increases in RPM the noise appears to go away and the typical hum is heard (sounds good) but while under load I’m getting the rapid on/off screeching sounds as heard while the spindle transitions between 12000RPM to 18000RPM in the video)
I’ve just had a look at this is can happen. Typically it happens as the grease is moved around the bearings is re-distributed and is more common on out the box or infrequently used spindles.
There is no harm running this, but I would recommend a warm up cycle - is it been ran in a cold environment?
For a warm up cycle, I’d recommend running it at 8k, 10k, 12k, 15k, 18k 20k and then 24k for about a minute a time.
That should re-distribute the grease and the noice will likely go away.
Luke, thanks for the response as for the environment my Shapeoko is in a heated garage and never gets below 15C and it’s been running 5 to 8 hours for the past week. Would it be normal if I still hear this noise at the end of an 8 hour run on the machine as this is what got my attention at the end of day yesterday?
That said I’ll keep running it as you mentioned and introduce a warm up cycle as I’m getting the first project of the day prepped for machining. Can macros in Carbide Motion take in time parameters (ie. sleep 60 seconds…) before running the next M3 S… commands (edit: will motion accept the G4 command as in G4 P60 )?
(edit: answered my own question by trying… LOL
Warmup Macro saved in CM
I’ve had similar noises come and go. We did pull apart a couple of units and also send samples to our manufacturing partner but all we could come up with was the grease. Whilst it’s a little strange there have been no other ‘symptoms’ of bad or damaged bearings as you’d expect. Obviously if we saw/heard of that we’d want to take a deeper look. Personally I’d keep running it as is and try the warm up cycle.
I have a program saved for a spindle warm-up that is almost identical, but I never thought to put it as a macro. Thanks for putting that in my head that often misses the easy way in favor of a more complex method.
LOL, I think you’d be surprised how many people that comment would resonate with, me included… Besides life would probably be much more boring if we always took the easy way to do things
