I’ve tried two different emails and a chat, with no response from support, so am turning to the community to see if anyone else has solutions.
The door to my Nomad just won’t stay fully closed, triggering the machine to stop the job (including the spindle). Forf the moment, I’m using a spring clamp to force it to stay shut, but is shouldn’t open on its own.
The chip fan won’t stay on the collet. It is way too loose and simply falls off. I could put some shim of some sort in to keep it in place, but that risks putting it off balance, a dangerous condition when the spindle is spinning at high speeds.
I’ve asked support if it’s possible to purchase a new chip fan. I know there are 3D print models around for various chip fans, but am leery of putting something like that on a fast-spiining collet.
I have several chip fans & just use tape on the inside to get them to fit tighter. Evenly spaced so as not to upset the balance. I wasn’t aware chip fans were original equipment. I don’t have a 3D printer, so I machined mine from nylon. Not worried about them coming apart, but they are pretty loud at higher speeds, so I don’t use them above 15000 RPM.
That’s surprising that support hasn’t replied quickly, I’ve emailed them twice since getting my Nomad a few weeks ago and received a reply within 2 hours both times.
Thanks, everyone, for the replies. I guess I’ll just wait for support to answer. As I said, I have a temporary workaround for the door issue by using a spring clamp to prevent the door from moving away from the door sensor.
just curious do you have any issues with the door catching on the HDPE/Bamboo sides? i had that issue and had to slide the door within the hinge, and it was quite difficult to get hinge back on, so maybe your hinge isn’t seated as far back as it should be for some reason?
No, the door isn’t catching on the sides, It has clearance on both sides. I’ll check the hinge, but it looked good when I was first trying to find out what was happening.
I do like the machine automatically turning the spindle off and stopping the job if the door is opened. However, there doesn’t seem to be any recovery from this, even if you do close the door. I was able to resume the job when it first happened, but the spindle did not restart, so I had to hit the STOP button, which, of course, puts the machine in a state where it has to be reinitialized, which means you have to cut air for a while if you want to restart.
Yes. I did that and tried to resume the job after correcting the door ajar, but the spindle didn’t start up again. The machine was repositioning to restart the job, but I would expect the spindle to spin up first, since it was automatically stopped when the door open triggered. I didn’t let it go far enough to actually get close to the job, as I didn’t want the spindle to dive into the work without running. Fortunately, the job wasn’t very far along when it happened the first time, so it didn’t waste much time air cutting. For that job, I put my finger on the outside of the door to keep it there for the duration of the job. Fortunately, it wasn’t a long job.
Regarding the chip fan: Several times I have pushed the chip fan onto the collet thinking it was fully seated when, in fact, it was only partially up the collet nut. This does exactly as you describe, fly loose and end up spinning around my endmill during the project.
Now, I make a habit of holding the fan on the bottom of the collet and then spinning the collet until I feel the alignment partially seat. After that I can fully seat the chip fan all the way to the top of the collet. Using this method I’ve never had the chip fan come loose.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve made sure the chip fan was seated all the way up as far as it would go, but it’s so loose, it would slip right off. Support has contacted me and is sending a new chip fan. I was also contacted about the door and have some steps I need to take to show them the issue with pictures and video.
I’ll report back when I’ve got the answers to the questions I’ve asked.
I put a bit of blue tape on the right side of the door for the door to connect to the base. It doesn’t stop me from opening the door, but provides just enough hold to prevent the air pressure change from opening the door.
I had a very nice discussion with C3D support this afternoon. Turns out the door issue is known and there isn’t an official solution, yet.
One suggestion was to move the door sensor closer to the front of the machine (it’s currently all the way back on its mounting slots). I haven’t tried that, yet, but I’m not sure it will solve the problem.
I have a couple of ideas which I’ll prototype on my own machine and, when I’m satisfied with one, will post what worked for me.
My chip fan drops off after long jobs. My suspicion is the plastic expands more than the ER11 colltet nut.
Luckily the air flow seems to keep it in place when spinning.
I’ve been thinking about ways to help keep the door from moving and will be trying to prototype the following sometime this weekend.
I’ve experimented a little with a magnet around the door sensor and found that more than about 1/2" is sufficient to prevent any interference with a magnet. My first plan is to put a small right-angle bracket mounted (temporarily for the experiment) to the wall of the machine and a small strong magnet attached to the door located about 1" above the door sensor. This should supply enough force to keep the door closed.
I’ll report my results when I’ve done the experiment.
Question: Is it possible to upload a picture of this when I’m done?
My Nomad3 door wouldn’t stay closed. The interlock sensor was already all the way out. They sent another door that was exactly like the original and the geometry of both seemed fine so I thought there must be another reason the door wouldn’t stay shut.
Removed the left side panel in order to pull out the aluminum clad polyethylene roof and found that the roof panel was bent down along the hinge side. Tested how that affects the door position and it does push the bottom of the door out.
The al/poly panel is easily bent so I straightened it. Maybe gave it a little crown I don’t recall. Door works fine now.
If you don’t want to do the above you could just glue a low height stop to the al/poly floor. Plenty of flexibility in the door to lift above a low stop.
I found a solution. It dawned on my cabinet doors have similar issues and there are ready-made magnetic catches you can buy an any hardware store. I temporarily placed the body to the side of the machine and the catch plate to the door. Now, it closes with a distinct click and the door will NOT vibrate open. Pictures attached.
Carbide3D kindly sent me new chip fans and they work well. I can’t tell what happened with the original one, but it refuses to stay on unless I put a couple of small pieces of tape to act as shims on opposite sides of the fan. I’ll keep that one around, just in case, for the future, but the two new ones have a snug fit and don’t come off until I take them off.
