I’ve been working slowly and deliberatlely trying to get my machine ready to fire up for the first time.
Installed the Limit Switch kit and had it pretty well dialed-in yesterday. Set up my hard and soft limits and the machine seemed to home properly and stopped before crashing at all extremes on the table.
Unfortunately, when installing the limit switch brackets on the Y-axis I didn’t fully tighten the bolt so the bracket was able to slip out-of-position and it ended up moving back toward the stantion plates. This caused the machine to crash against those plates before it hit the Y-axis limit switch and it was fighting to move to the zero position for several seconds before it finally gave up and threw an error on the screen.
Once I realized what happened, I moved the gantry and secured the limit switch bracket properly, and was prepared to re-do the whole limit switch calibration / soft limits set up again. The problem is that the machine was acting funny whenever I tried to jog on the Y-axis… there was a strong stutter or stammer at low travel speeds and even at high speeds it would occasionally glitch and not move.
My initial thought was that the lead screws were bound up and the gantry might be misaligned after the incident, so I tried loosening the allen screws on the coupling cylinder on the Y1 motor to see if it would relieve any binding there… it didn’t seem to make any difference, so I also removed the 4 bolts from the leadscrew tensioning block to see if there was some kind of preload in the gantry.
At this point, both the Y1 and Y2 motors were still attached electrically and the lead screw coupling cylinders were tight on both sides. This would allow me to see more clearly what was going on when I tried to jog the machine. When the machine was jogged, the Y1 motor acted funny and appeared to stutter or stammer but would not rotate properly.
I reseated the Y1 cable in the control box, and will try completely powering off and back on to see if that helps. Obviously this all worked properly just before the Limit Switch / Stantion crash so I know that everything was wired and set up properly earlier this morning.
Disconnected the 4-bolts on the Y2 motor lead screw side (good side) just to see what the behavior of that motor was and to notice any differences. The leadscrew spins perfectly at all travel speeds (10 ipm - 300ipm) and is VERY hard to turn by hand… but it can be done. Has a slight ratcheting feel when it is rotated by hand.
The Y1 (bad?) motor is a LOT easier to turn by hand… can almost do it with 2 fingers. Also discovered that the stuttering only occurs at low travel speeds (10 ipm and 50 ipm)… it spins normally at 100 ipm / 200 ipm and 300ipm. When stuttering the motor does not rotate… it just moves a few degrees clockwise, then a few degrees counterclockwise.
Disconnected the Y1 and Y2 motor connections on the control box and swapped ports to see if the issue was wiring or controller related. The issue stays on the Y1 motor whether it’s plugged into Y1 or Y2 on the control box.
This additional information leads be to believe that the Y1 motor is bad. I have removed any possible binding from the lead screws (on both sides) and the motor still behaves strangely… swapping wiring does not move the issue to the opposite motor.
Full cold-boot on the machine and PC did not resolve the issue.
If any of you have further troubleshooting / isolation test ideas I’d love to hear it.
Super bummed that the machine was 99% ready to fire and I still have 3 more vacation days left to play… but now it sounds like I’m dead in the water and may need to order a replacement motor to fix this???
Hey Greg… sorry to hear about your trouble… It does sound
like you are on the right track… Let Langmuir know what’s up and see what they can do for you… In the event it’s something you end up taking on yourself, I went and looked up this old post that should have some info for you… Good luck!!
Is the motor shaft spinning inside coupler, due to lose screws on motor shaft side? I can’t tell in vid; I would check that might have spun inside coupler chewing up inside bore of coupler.
The unusual part is the way that the motor does not turn at all… it just wiggles back and forth from left to right a few degrees instead of spinning all the way around… almost like it has a damaged stator or something. When I set the machine for a fast travel speed, it WILL spin correctly… but when I set it to go slow it will just wiggle helplessly.
Thanks for confirming and checking in here… I appreciate the help and would LOVE to get this machine running soon. It has taken me almost 3 months to get it assembled and I’m just dying to start making some cuts with it.
You should have just received an order confirmation email, keep an eye out for a shipping confirmation email with tracking info. I’ll make sure the motor gets shipped out today!
You guys are awesome! Got the email confirmation already… so thank you.
It’s a bummer that I couldn’t get this running before my vacation ended, but maybe it will arrive in time for next weekend. Should be an easy swapout and will give me time before then to watch a few more tutorials on the FireControl and Fusion360 applications.
So much of my decision to buy a Langmuir machine was based on this message forum (and the amount of helpful knowledge shared here) and the well-earned reputation of the Langmuir support team for going the extra mile to help troubleshoot issues and actively participate in these forums.
I’m convinced that the experience of buying / assembling and running a complicated machine like this would be far more difficult and frustrating if it was some other company instead.
Well, you are going to have your system up and running in time for the world recession. This might bring the price of metal down. I had to slow down on my cutting as I realized how much my mistakes were costing me!!!
