I have on original 883 Pro. It has been sitting for several years. I finally had a project I could use it on and dusted it off last night. While using it I was noticing the spindle motor would randomly stop. So I reset everything and tried out the MDI as a diagnostic.
With the spindle off of the work piece after a couple seconds of starting up the spindle it would make a grinding noise and would stop and no further commands would re-activate short of a power cycle and restarting carbide motion. I was able to spin the spindle by hand and didnt notice any grittiness in the motion, though I could feel a bit of cogging, but I believe that is inherent to any stepper motor driven system. So in an effort to further diagnose I disconnected the drive belt and spun the motor and it was able to reach full speed and hold with no noise or stalling. Upon re-connecting the drive belt and running a test the noise was even worse. I can only assume the bearings in the spindle have gone bad even though they feel fine when spun by hand.
Is there a way to service the spindle, or are replacements available. I checked the store and didnt see replacement parts listed. Or is there something else you suggest I check before firing up the parts cannon?
As a general FYI, grease separates over time, so spindle bearings should be run-in veeeerrrrry carefully after any long period sitting.
I like to run at 10% speed for a half hour, then 20% for 15 minutes, then 30% for 15 minutes, etc. until getting to normal running speed.
This isn’t Nomad-specific advice, just comes from a lot of time working on high-speed bearing assemblies in the past. We had a custom machine just to run in new bearing cartridges.
So I emailed support as WillAdams said and still havent heard anything back. I assume they took time off for the holidays so I’m not holding anything against them. But in the meantime I didnt want to sit still on this so I disassembled the spindle and replaced the bearings. This has not resolved the issue.
I tried doing a slow bed in process like nwilson suggested just to give the new bearings the best chance. I ran it at 10% but the rpm wasnt consistent. After about 40 minutes it started making a buzzing / grinding noise and stopped on its own before I could shut it down. After a reset I tried running it at 10% again but this time it only lasted about 10 minutes. Out of curiosity I tried a 3rd time to see if a pattern emerged and this time it only lasted about 15 seconds. I checked the motor but it wasnt even warm, so I dont believe heat to be a factor.
I gave up for the night in frustration and tried again the next day. It seemed to be back to the mostly functional state it was in for my 1st test, so this time I tried different speeds. It seems the higher the speed the quicker the buzz / grinding sets in. I managed to get a couple videos to show what I’m experiencing.
The first shows the inconsistent speed and the second shows the buzz / grinding. I probably should have mentioned that the inconsistent speed was also happening before I replaced the bearings so this isnt new, I just forgot to mention it in my original post. I’m now starting to suspect the motor controller.
