The machine has been used than 30 hours since arriving 6 months or so ago. I ran several parts on a sheet of Ultem and the process took about 10 hours. Near the end of the last process I heard a loud sound and looked to see the Ultem sheet was Suddenly loose and thrashing around the machine on the endmill. I the process and checked my code, and the code looked fine, the simulation looked fine in fusion. The sheet Was held down using two wooden pegs for the flip and double sided tape. The pegs were set into the MDF board, almost to the bottom of the MDF, and all the way through the half inch thick sheet of ultem so it prying all of that loose suddenly makes me concerned about damage to the spindle from the crash. 2 weird things I noticed inspecting the parts. One, the ripped up section of Ultem from the trashing has this notch in the corner that almost looks like the machine tried to switch to the next part without retracting far enough but the code shows it’s fine. Running it again the machine finished the process normally without any issue in this spot. Second weird thing is each part had these 3 little marks created from the tool retracting. Does this mean there’s runout? It went great for 10 hours straight before the crash. Here is a link to the machine initializing because that’s what carbide asked to see and the photos of the Ultem https://imgur.com/a/9UljGJW
Sounds like a Z axis issue, may be the AB nuts or more likely stiff linear rails. Have you maintained Z rails?
There are some typos in my original post, sorry about that. I meant to say the machine has not been run for more than 30 hours. Is that the kind of maintenance that would need to be done and not short of a timeframe? I have not done any maintenance yet other than replacing the main board when the spindle stop spinning right after I first got it. I thought I was having issues with the z axis for a while, but figured out I was changing tools without prompting the machine so that was totally my fault. I did not make that mistake this time, it ran 20 or so of this step across the sheet before this corner one crashed it. I clean it out after use, but that’s it so far. Thanks
It probably depends on the material type and dust extraction too. If you cut a lot if dusty material with no extraction, even if you vacuum up at the end of the cycle you are going to need to maintain more than if you cut less dusty material with good extraction.
Also, lots of intricate detail will cause lots of z movement and will reduce time for maintenance.
I was churning out stuff a couple of month ago and suddenly the z wasn’t happy. I thought I had been keeping it clean and lubed but it needed intensive cleaning and lube to get it back and running. I am not a heavy user of my matching so was surprised.
Good to know! Much appreciated! Yeah this is lots of smaller detail stuff, I make lanyard beads for EDC. I have a vacuum attached the endmill pulling most of the chips out, but it’s not perfect.
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