So, I have a little bit of a dilemma with me Shapeoko 5 Pro. I was running an aluminum part for a little bracket for a boat steering bracket. The machine was cutting only .030" deep per pass and feeding slower then expected for aluminum. At one point the machine stopped in feeding and the steppers in Y clicked a couple times before I hit the “E” stop button.
I rehomed the machine because I had to reset the machine to start again, but when the gantry moved to the back in Y the machine hit hard before the limit switches stopped the gantry. Also, the steppers clicked a few times before it stopped for the limiter switches.
My concern is the steppers not being able to hold up to pushing them in the aluminum. I watched a video on the 65mm spindle holding up to different depths of cuts and feeds until the spindle failed. This video gave me a better understanding of how hard the machine could be pushed before failure. But my problem was that I wasnt pushing my machine hard in the aluminum because i didn’t want to build up heat and fail because of this heat. But the stepper motors failed in the Y direction and now cant push the machine harder and faster into wood. I have to make cuts with very low depths of cuts and have to slow down the feed rate more then I should be able to.
The ballscrews are the whole reason I bought this machine and without being able to push the machine harder now, I am concerned that there is a failed stepper motor, or a busted gear on the motor that is failing under pressure and will not let me drive the machine to its full potential. What am I to do? and I just came to the length of my warranty. Ugh. Anyone have any insight to any options?
Check the motor couplings. I just replaced mine on my HDM because I was having similar issues. My machine is about 1.5 years old. Hopefully you get it sorted out.
I will check them out. I had a feeling that as soon as my warranty ran out, my Shapeoko 5 Pro would break down. It just one of the things that just seems to happen to me.
Ok, I got over to the shop finally and was checking out the motors on the ball screws in the Y axis. There doesnt seem to be anything that can be adjusted, or tightened that would help the motors not click out of alignment. The motor is a direct drive motor that has a long interlock from the motor to the ball screw, that can not jump or skip teeth.
So now I am back to square one of trying to figure out why the motors in Y can jump out of alignment under higher pressure on work. What to do now?
The stepper motors are loosing steps. You are pushing harder than the motors then self can handle.
Ow the question is are you exceeding the machines capabilities or do you have a mechanical issue.
When was the last time you lubricated your bearing blocks? Generally that’s what causes this for me.
You can un bolt the motors and slide the couplings apart and move everything by hand to check for binding.
And just because you are out of warranty doesn’t mean carbide will ignore your issues. They normally will at the very least help you trouble shoot the concern.
The specs I was using for the cutter that would cause the stepper motor to skip orientation were: #205 1/4 endmill
Depth per pass 0.02
Plunge rate 10.0
Feed rate 25.0
RPM 15000
I even enabled ramping at 20 degrees.
This is all in inches by the way.
I needed to cut the outside perimeter of the little bracket I was making.
This was all set to run on aluminum. Because the motors jumped location on me, I had my first piece cut wrong and it ruined it. I couldn’t salvage the piece. I didn’t have much material left and had only one more chance to get it right. So, I slowed the feed rate down to around 50% just so I could get through the part and finish it. I was making this for a client and thought that I was going to have to cancel the order or outsource it to another company, which would have increased the cost beyond what was agreed upon.
I havent serviced the motors by lubricating them. I dont have much runtime on my machine period. I usually head back to the state I used to live in for work and stay a month or more at a time. I take around 4 to 5 trips a year. Plus, I live in an area where firewood is our source of heating and I am doing a lot of fire wooding for myself and my parents. Lastly, I am the one who does all of the maintenance on the properties my parents own.
I say all of this to explain that I don’t spend a lot of time at my shop using my machine. Yes, I have ran my machine and probably have less then 60 hours now on my brand new Shapeoko 5 Pro. I bought the machine a year ago.
My concern now is that I haven’t replaced my spindle with the 80mm spindle yet. I have to wait until I have the money to be able to purchase this spindle. The 80mm spindle will have more beefiness to it and allow the machine to push harder and faster for work, but I am afraid now that this will not be the case for me if the body of my machine can’t handle the specks of cutting aluminum that I posted above. So, if my 65mm spindle cant handle cutting aluminum at this rate, then the machine will never handle trying to cut more with the 80mm spindle.
Yeah, I realize that I stated having a new machine that is a year old isn’t a new machine. What I meant by the was my machine was brand new when I bought it, not a used machine from someone else.
I’ll lubricate the ball screw guides when I get back over to the shop. I have ran the machine after all the issues I had and it hasn’t jumped steps. But now that it had acted funny on the aluminum job, I have begun backing down on all of my setups to baby the machine.
I have to realize that my mill isn’t the same as these big CNC machining mills that I have been running in the machine shop I work at off and on.
I will also advise to lubricate the linear rails. If they go dry it adds A LOT of friction. They recommend Mobile Vactra #2. Get a coat on the rails as well as some in the bearings themselves.
It’s counterintuitive, but you need to increase your feedrate at least quadruple. I run aluminum at 100 IPM minimum. Too slow gums up the flutes of the endmill. If they clog, then it can’t feed and skips steps. Using a 2 flute is not helping unless you feed even faster…so see the next bit of advise:
If you want some extra leeway on feedrate, use a single flute like the #278Z.
I have never been able to cut aluminum the way I have seen and was told. I have tried to run aluminum with a much faster feedrate and it just seems to never go well. It all acts like I am cutting hard steel. Even with this profile cut that my machine acted up on, I was originally planning on cutting the full depth of .800 part depth and step into it from the side a little at a time as needed until machined to size, but even that was concerning because I don’t have a way to cool down the cutting efficiently.
I was planning on running some air cooling to the cutting edge for metal, but my dang shop compressor took a big crap on me and is now out of commission. It doesn’t pay to be a poor man’s shop. Anyways, I will try to rethink the way I cut aluminum and see if I can finally get the feed rates correct.
Thanks for the advice. Hope to have an update for this thread soon. Firewood is calling me for the next few days though.
The big things for aluminum for me have been to use a single flute tool which has a suitable coating (usually a #282Z or #278Z), and the default feeds and speeds in Carbide Create have worked for me (even when I forget to turn on Ramping).
I run aluminum at 100 IPM minimum. Too slow gums up the flutes of the endmill. If they clog, then it can’t feed and skips steps. Using a 2 flute is not helping unless you feed even faster…so see the next bit of advise: