Hi all. Having a problem with a loose bearing retainer on one of my Y axis ball screws and hoping this group can provide some guidance. I found a few related topics here but none seem to address the exact issue I’m having. I cannot reinstall the retainer as it appears the bearing has moved outward on the ball screw and covered the receiving treads for the retainer (added pic to clarify).
I did a little light tapping around the edge of the bearing to see if it might move back inward on the ball screw but it didn’t appear to budge and I don’t want to do any further damage. Has anyone else experienced this and have some advice for getting things back where they belong?
I’ve opened a support ticket but, I’m impatient to get back to cutting. Thanks in advance for any guidance y’all might be able to provide.
[edit for completeness of info:] Shapeoko 5 Pro 2x4
Is that a flat area on the ball screw? Can you utilize that relief to lightly tap the inner race of the bearing so as to try to move the bearing enough to expose a couple threads and screw that retainer back in?
Hi Ed. Good eye and a good suggestion. In my initial attempt, I only tapped around the outer race. It didn’t occur to me to try tapping at that flat spot.
In any case, I just gave that a try. Initially, I didn’t see any movement but tried again with a little more force (made me cringe a bit) and the bearing did move inward. It seems to have bottomed out and I don’t want to tap with any more force.
The retainer did thread in and I was able to tighten it up (need to figure out how much torque it should have before I get too aggressive with it). Visually, compared to the left (good) side bearing retainer, it seems like the right side bearing still needs to move further inward; a bit more thread is showing than on the good side. I’ll see what I hear from Carbide support tomorrow.
In any case, thanks for the help. Much appreciated!
Glad that worked. I don’t don’t own a S5 so I was hoping I was seeing that correctly. If the ball screw was turned 180º I would have not known about the relief.
That nut is designed to squeeze the outer bearing race to keep the whole bearing from spinning in its hole. Tightening it down firmly will not hurt the bearing. As long as the inner bearing runs free everything should work fine.
Thanks all for the assistance. Got it resolved yesterday. I’m attaching the response from support for anyone that may search for this issue here in the future:
The reason why the threads aren’t visible is because the ball screw slid forward to the front of the machine. Below will be step by step instructions on how to resolve the issue. If you would like to do this via phone call we can do that as well.
Remove the Y axis motor
Grab the ball screw and push it further into the coupler cage
start threading the nut
Tighten the nut by holding the smaller nut with needle nose pliers
Make it fairly tight but don’t crank it as hard as possible
