I live in the Chicagoland Area. It had been quite cold the past week (subzero). My Shapeoko 5 Pro 4x4 is in my unheated garage. Today, needed to do a quick carve and when it pushes off from the bitsetter, it appears to jam up. I shut down the machine and attempted to move it manually. It is rough going about 5-6" off of the right Y. Then it is fine all the way to the left Y. Issue is, it is intermittently occuring. Could this be due to the cold? Any other ideas? Nothing appears to be physically obstructing.
Last year during some of the very cold snaps people reported problems in their unheated garages. As @WillAdams suggested make sure your are lubricated. However the Mobil Vactra #2 oil will freeze and certainly gets quite sticky when very cold.
Here is some data from the Exxon/Mobil Material Data Sheet
They are saying that at 21 degrees is likely the minimal point to pour it and it likely looses some of its lubrication properties below 21 degrees F.
Those reporting problems during cold weather recovered when the temperatures came back up.
I was also a little concerned about the recent extreme cold here and was wondering about temperature limits. It was -40 in my shop for a few days. Fortunately, it has warmed up a little and I am cutting again but I was very surprised I didn’t need to make any adjustments to my old SO3 to regain any precision/accuracy/movement. So, to make a short answer long, I haven’t had any problems with extreme shifts in ambient temperature, knock on wood! @WillAdams has posted temperature limits in a few topics.
Another thing to understand is the machine wiring has zero protection from EMI. When I setup my machine it was and still is next to a wall mounted outlet at the level of the machine which caused the motor to jump on my y axis (where the outlet was). I used a metal fabric and just covered the outlet. Anything with EMI can also cause motor issues so check all wiring near you machine when you are troubleshooting.
