I was about to run a small test project, and noticed a screw on the Shapeoko’s X axis. Odd.
when I checked, the screw had fallen out of the post holding the limit switch and, not only that, the the other screw and both posts were loose, too.
It’s probably a good thing this happended after intiialisation and before running the project, because mid-project could have caused quite an issue. I didn’t want any catastrophies to happen, so I checked all the mounting and frame screws and noticed quite a few were somewhat loose - between 1/4 and 1/2 of a turn needed to tighten them.
Is there a recommendation for how often these should be checked, please?
Appreciate the link, @WillAdams, but it would appear there isn’t a specific time to do this (unless it’s every time) until an “Oh shoot” episode (polite version for the more sensitive ears!)
I actually went through and one by one added Loctite 243 to all the non-adjustment screws on my machine. I still check on them every so often, but it definitely added to my peace of mind.
Since everyone assembles their machine differently there will always be some screws loose. My idea of tight and your idea is different. On some things I have worked on the torque was given to tighten screws to but on our Shapeoko there is not definitive torque spec. So some people make screws gorilla tight and some only make them monkey tight. Again gorilla and monkey are relative terms with no definitive measure.
As to a schedule that is something you will need to develop a time table on your own. If you have checked your machine weekly for a month and nothing loose then you could increase to monthly and so on and so on. If however you are finding loose screws then you need to increase frequency until you can get to a point you do not find loose screws.
It is always a good idea to give a quick spin of v wheels when you start a new project. If you are not using dust collection the v wheels get quite dirty and need to be cleaned much more often than machines using good dust collection. But even dust collection does not make your machine immune from gunk collecting on v wheels and other places.