After a couple weeks of using the MR-1, I noticed some oddities with the tool setter, that developed into issues and have since solved them. Figured I would share here since I didn’t see anything online about my specific issue.
I noticed while machining that the “tool set” light would flash periodically, I hadn’t paid attention to this prior so I though it may have just been normal (it’s not). After a while, the tool setter would throw an error during the auto tool set routine (touching once, traveling way too high, then not being able to make it back down). A simple clean off with shop air solved this problem as it happened, but eventually it did not…
I took apart the tool setter as shown in the troubleshooting guide and found nothing wrong. Eventually, I started testing voltages. This lead to the discovery of about 5 VDC at 125mA between the spindle/gantry, and the tool setter surface. This lead me to believe something was shorted internal to the tool setter. But it acted normally in the “test” mode.
The next step in testing was to perform the tool set routine with each connection on the enclosure unplugged to figure out where this short was coming from. And it turned out that the Y motors had been flooded with coolant creating an internal short to the gantry, causing the tool inside the spindle touching the tool setter to think the tool setter was being activated.
Langmuir stated to my team on the phone that this has been an issue with their supplier of the motors, and advised us to apply silicone around the connectors on our new steppers and the others. New steppers fixed the problem.
I didn’t include everything so if there are any questions please let me know, I can try to help.
Use a multimeter to check voltage between the top of the tool setter and the spindle. If you have any voltage, unplug things one by one to trace down what is shorting.
I’m glad I found this post. I am having the same issues and I damaged the face of my tool setter just now trying to calibrate work offsets. It works in test mode but when I run the routine it either touches off and raises way too high for it to finish the routine or it runs into the tool setter and keeps going.
I am behind on a bunch of parts because of this.
Replying to my own post with issues I found today. I had similar problems as Mick_GT did, however I when disconnecting everything while looking for grounds, I still had voltage present.
I was advised by tech support to ground the surface plate to the enclosure and to make sure everythign had a solid ground to disipate any stray voltage.
What I found when grounding the surface plate to the enclosure was an increse in voltage to 5VDC.
long story short, the issue was an internal short in the the tool setter due to corrosion on the PCB; from coolant intrusion. the issue was intermintant which made it hard to diagnose.
The tool setter functions when isolated from the rest of the machine which is how I am using it until a new one shows up. Hope this helps anyone than needs it.
@BigHeadLittleBrain Also check the surface of the tool setter to the spindle. I bet you’ll find the same 5V differential. This means that you’ll be shorting that out for the quick touch during every tool setting operation.
It’s not from coolant, the original probe/tool setter design has 5V DC on all of it’s metal surfaces.
I does have 5 volts between the top of the tool setter. I have had to isolate the setter completely from the machine with some thin plastic sheet I had laying around in order to get it to work in any fashion. I don’t know exactly what is wrong with it but I took it apart and there is some green death inside it.
I’m not an electrical engineer but having voltage supplied to the body of anything on purpose sounds like a very bad idea. That will cause electrolysis of various things in the machine. At least I have seen that in the past working on ships.
One big diagnostic step that we did, to narrow down the issue was to unplug things one by one to see what is causing the short to the gantry. It may be your tool setter, but there’s also a chance it could be anything else plugged into the back of the electrical enclosure. Run the tool set procedure, and unplug one thing, see if it fixed the problem. Try any combination of everything except the z-axis motor unfortunately. This helped us narrow down our y-axis steppers had been filled with coolant, taking them out caused them to drip for hours. Hopefully its not too hard to figure out from here. Good luck.
The new tool setter I got solved half the problems, the intermittent and random activation during the tool setting routine and just when running the machine seems to have gone away with the replacement.
The original issue of the machine touching off and then raising too high persisted. I unplugged everything (again) looking for sources of stray voltage. I found that I have voltage leaking from my limit switches. So I will have to address that.
What is interesting thought is that I removed the grounding strap I installed between the surface plate and the enclosure (which was suggested by Langmuir tech support) and the tool setter is now able to function even with about 60mV of stray voltage.
I do remember I was skeptical about those little limit switches during the initial build. Automation Direct has some interesting and reasonably priced precision limit switches that I might go with.
I have the Merkel switches. The new generation limit switches from Langmuir are a better choice.
They are now liquid-proof. It’s your call, but you will save time and money—just my two cents.
Ensure you have the latest CutControl version to go with the V2 problem. 24.1 I believe.
I didn’t know they updated the switches. I got my machine in August. The switches that it came with are just the little ABS plastic, hobby switches. I will reach out to Langmuir on Monday.
I checked the version of CutControl last week I think when this problem started. I think it’s up to date. I will look again when I get out in the shop later today.