Got bracing out of 3x2 Ash, extremely ridgid, and the top is dead flat and level, I actually replaced the casters with the standard Kreg feet to eliminate that as well.
What makes me wonder is why the machine sounds and cuts just fine as long as only one axis is in movement, as soon as x and y have to move at the same time the resonance kicks in, its almost as if the controller didn’t have enough juice to supply enough current to all 3 steppers at the same time.
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Did you put a noise damper between the machine and the table? If not, the table could be acting as a large speaker/drum. I used a heavy hard rubber mat between mine. I noticed there is more noise running diagonally just as a note.
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I do have small rubber circles i added recelntly but dont think they are thick enough to dampent vibrations. What kind of mat did you use? Got a link?
Could you share a link to the rubber mat you purchased? Thank you!
I have a 2x4 that sits on a 2x7 cabinet so was able to get away with 2 2x3 heavy rubber mats from Home Depot. They were only 12 each and the biggest bang for the buck and all rubber versus fiber and rubber. Menards has a good selection of larger heavy mats at a reasonable price.
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I made the same mistake with my Beaver HD Pro frame Kit. You inserted the 2x4s under the lip of the Kreg table, which will cause a 1/8 sag from the table’s edge to the center.
I made this same mistake, which caused my Beaver HD Pro to flex inward and caused resonance similar to what you are experiencing. I recommend going with a torsion box with a 12x12 structure.
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How big is the breaker you are connected to? My garage receptacle’s are on a 15 amp breaker. Your spindle draws 12 amps and your machine draws another 4. I’m not sure what else might being drawing for the same breaker. Maybe add up what your are drawing and see it if falls within the capacity of the breaker. Maybe test breaker.
Tractor Supply also has a flat rubber mat in 4’ widths. That’s what I have under my HDM.
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Well I did a 2mm notch at the ends to accommodate for the thickness of the kreg steel (1.95mm), Like I said the top is dead flat, there is no sag, no twist, I checked with high quality straight edge.
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The spindle is connected to its own circuit and the machine itself is connected to its own dedicated circuit as well. Had space in my panel so ran separate circuits for both
EVA foam is also another possibility. It’s a bit softer than rubber, but is cheap and specifically made for cushioning. You can get squares of it at Harbor Freight. Some foam specialty places may have it in wide sheets and various densities. I’m considering that under my SO5 Pro 4x4 to help dampen noise some.
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with the VFD spindle being new and the 5 being new, have you tried unplugging the vfd from the machine and then moving the machine, I am curious if there is interferrence from the VFD. VFD’s make noise, if the cables are not shielded properly there could be interference with the Nema motors creating the noise. Just a thought.
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Did you check the surface of the table before or after placing your Shapeoko on the table?
I am getting ready to setup my new S5 4x4 and was thinking about this situation a lot. Those steppers are not huge, think they are the same size as the smaller machines? The S5 4x4 is very big and the steppers have way more mass to deal with twisting those huge screws, plus 4 feet is a huge span for the size of the gantry so I am sure the potential for accuracy issues is much higher then the smaller machines.
Maybe it just does not have enough power/stability to plow a slot through .15 inches of plywood on a diagonal track that is probably the machines weakest point of travel without chatter?
I plan to test out my S5’s limitations as soon as possible, obviously hoping for satisfactory results. I hope you can get this figured this out to your satisfaction.
Have you tried a second pass after roughing, I usually use a .02 stock to leave on roughing then run a contour to put a final finishing pass on vertical walls.
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I even tried 0.125 DoC in plywood, it seems a little better but the chatter still happens sooner or later. Tried 0.15 stock to leave and chatter still happened during roughing and finishing pass. One thing to note is the chatter is not persistent throughout the cut, the machine will cut fine for few seconds then the following few seconds the chatter will be really bad and then it will stop all of the sudden. In all my tests the chatter was bad enough to render the pieces unusable in my opinion.
Today I also tried pausing the job whenever the chatter would happen but in 90% of the cases it continued as soon as I pressed start again.
Got session scheduled with support for friday, lets see if we can figure it out
One thing I’m happy to say works flawlessly is surfacing material (cutting boards after glue up), because it only goes along x or y there is zero chatter, so at least I got one big thickness planer lol
I’ve just bought Makita router, tomorrow going to completely disconnect the VFD and see how it goes with Makita, just to eliminate probability of VFD causing these issues
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.15 seems like way too much stock to leave, more then half a 1/4 end mill thickness, maybe try like .02 for a low stress shave off the edge.
My HDM has made similar noises, not as bad as yours, but when traveling at a diagonal from back to front. I heard some weird sounds similar to what is happening with you, on one travel then repeated similar travels with no noise, so I am not exactly sure whats up…
Hope it is a loose coupler or a bad bearing block, something easy to fix.
I mostly use a 2 flute down cutting end mill for wood.
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