For the last few month I have been enjoying the Shapeoko Pro XXL without any issues.
But today, while in the middle of a cut, the X axis stopped moving.
So the machine kept going back and forth (along the Y axis and up and down along the Z axis without issues), but the X stopped responding to the controller.
I stopped the job and checked all the cabling and all looks OK.
While the machine was turned on, I tried pushing (gently) along the Y axis or Z axis, as expected they don’t move.
However when I try to push along the X Axis, it moves without any resistance (while powered).
I checked the power source by using the power of another axis to see if it (The X Axis) would behave as expected (so not moving when powered), but I get the same result.
It looks like the stepped motor is not working correctly anymore.
I tried restarting everything, but now when I try to « initialise » the machine in Carbide Motion, the Z and Y axis move as expected, the X does not move at all (stepper makes a low wizzing sound).
After a few seconds, Carbide Create crashes (window dispears)… Sometimes I get a message saying : controller disconnected unexpectedly.
Any idea of trouleshooting steps I could perform ?
@MLehon Is there an unusual amount of resistance when you push the X by hand with the machine powered down? If so try l lubricating the collinear rails with type one Oil.
Are the X access’ pulleys loses? If they are loose they will cause the X axis to move erratically or not at all.
If I understand correctly, the X axis is now moving freely even when the machine is power on. If this is the case, and considering the wizzing sound and the fact that his happened all of a sudden, I would bet that it’s a matter of a loose/lost setscrew on the X axis pulley, which results in the pulley not being tied to the stepper motor shaft rotation anymore.
Unfortunately to confirm this you will have to loosen the X belt and remove the X motor, to inspect the pulley.
I just unscrewed the X axis stepper (after losening the belt).
But the pulley seems to be firmly set in place.
When the machine is powered off there is no real resistance on any axis.
When powered on, only the Y and Z have any resistance.
I’ll try putting back the stepper (now that I know the pulley is not loose) and check again…
with a bit of luck the belt was not tight enough anymore ?
If the pulley is nice and tight, and if you already tried plugging the X motor cable into Y or Z at the controller and it won’t lock the stepper hen powered on, then it’s likely either a problem in the cabling somewhere along the way between the controller and the X stepper, or it’s the stepper motor itself.
I have yet to hear about a stepper motor dying (not that it’s impossible, just very rarely the case), so I would go back and inspect/wiggle the X axis cables ? Maybe support will have additional ideas
Since I had the stepped unscrewed from the machine, I tried to power it using one of the other plug (took the one from the Left Y) … and when powered, I can still easily turn the pulley with my fingers.
I also tried connecting the Z stepper to the X power cable, when powered I can’t move move it. So it looks like the X power cable is working as expected.
I checked all the cables and they look fine. I’ll double check with better light today.
So it looks like the Stepper has an issue, now that it is removed from the machine I’ll try to test it on its own.
What I still don’t understand is why Carbide Create is crashing… maybe it gets some funny replies from the controller with the “bad” stepper connected.
Ok, so after some troubleshooting with the help of support (Thanks to them),
it was finally nailed down to some cabling issue.
When I plugged the Stepper directly into the Controller board, then the problem didn’t happen (no way to turn the pulley easily)… So I unplugged everything (really everything to be sure) and checked the cabling step by step while re-plugging to make sure it all worked without any glitches.
I did a few cuts since then and all seems fine now.
So I suppose one of the cable was not complety plugged in (didn’t “click”), and moved very slowly with the vibrations of the machine.