Our table has worked flawlessly for 3 years and reciently ran into what we believe is a torch mechanical issue. Occasionally the torch will not go down all the way and make contact with the metal.
Does anyone know of a mechanical issue where the torch hangs up on the way down, won’t make contact with metal and will start cutting. I keep it as clean as possible and lubricated.
Are there parts that might need replacing?
Junk and debris paired with a lack of maintenance can certainly cause your Z axis to not travel down to touch off the metal.
Verify this by manually jogging it.
Although if you do indeed perform regular maintenance, then you will know the condition of both your lead screw as well as your IHS contacts.
I did find on my own Z axis that it would hang up just slightly at the very bottom, both on an old as well as a new example. I remedied this by physically moving the torch mount down more in relation to the assembly so that I had more “room” between touching off the metal and bottoming out on the Z axis.
Since doing this, I have found no such issue ever again.
But again, lack of maintenance will cause crud to build up and possibly damage the threads on the plastic nut that is on the lead screw.
Thank you. We have been doing your process so far. It’s as clean as we can get it. We were just wondering if there were parts that might need to be replaced. We use our table a lot.
If you want to inspect it thoroughly, here’s a quick and dirty disassembly video.
If you purchased any parts, I’d inquire about the plastic nut I attached above as well as the IHS assembly shown below.
It consists of a plastic component with a brass contact, and a wire.
Thank you. Great imformarion.
