There seems to definitely be a problem with the Nomad 3 spindle nut — mine was loose a week or so after delivery, I noticed it in time before it fell off. I tightened it, being careful not to tighten it too much.
Now after reading all this I’m no longer sure how tight it should be. My spindle does get hot, but I thought it was supposed to…
Will, thanks — I have been in touch with your support and was told to tighten the nut slightly and perhaps use some glue to hold it in place. So that’s what I did.
I have the impression your support is overloaded with requests, though. Interactions are on a timescale of weeks/months rather than days.
We try for much lower response time — sometimes things happen — anyone who has concerns on this sort of thing should write in to support@carbide3d.com and we’ll do our best to address them.
What really is the expected sloppiness on this spindle?
Am i expecting too much from the bearings and the spindle itself?
After changing the spindle with a new one the bearings already seem to be worn. They don’t wiggle in their seat anymore, but there is still play. and that is not flex in the machine.
Is it dangerous for the machine to run a couple of hours at a time? I don’ really see any textbook answer on what to do and not do. I want my Nomad to last me a long time…
Not just a few hours before i have to change some of the more critical parts.
I don’t receive that technical answers from support. Maybe someone with experience can answer? Are the machines not capable of running light duty milling without tearing themselves apart?
I’m not familiar with the new Nomad 3 spindle cartridge but usually setting something like this up requires the use of a tenths indicator. The bearings need a certain amount of play when cold to account for thermal expansion.
Also speaking from experience, when running higher rpm desktop machines, a spindle warmup cycle is recommended before use.
The Nomad is still pretty low power and shouldn’t have bearing issues when cutting full bore but it is a new design. I’m sure carbide3d will work out these bugs soon enough.
This is of course not when warmed up.
But this is leaving a lot of room for thermal expansion, is it not?
Not super clear, but there is a lot of movement imo.
I probably would not think too much of this unless i had started having issues with the bearings spinning freely in their seat on the first spindle.
And having the machine out of service has made time for checking tolerance and potential issues.
I was talking about axial play but it looks like you are have radial movement which would be a bad sign. Support should be able to give you specs on tolerances.
All I see is the spindle turning by hand which is perfectly normal. Unless you have an encoder and a controller that supports it, the spindle will have exactly 0 holding torque by design.
Am I not seeing something?
Hard to avoid rotation while wiggling the shaft here.
But there is quite a lot of movement X/Y a good few pixels.
Soory about vertical but here is a better example.
Maybe I am imagining things but that video looks like it is the collet or somewhere close to it wiggling, not the whole shaft?
I only have the older Nomad 833 Pro, which has a very different spindle design. However, I have run several 9+ hour jobs over the year and many many 5+ hour jobs, and as yet there’s no play in the spindle like you seem to be describing.
If your observation is correct, a better video might be one with a probe fitted and tightened, and then wiggling the probe.
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