Hey everyone, i started my machine up last evening and has not been turned on since my last post, i homed the torch from last position when i cut the test squares, as i jogged at 400 IPM from home it immediately bound up about 2-3 inches from home. the machine was cold and maybe 50 degrees in the shop and has not been turned on.
Could this happen if the drive motors are cold? This has happened more than once before from when it was off. Also as stated previously we had everything adjusted right and didnt have any issues at the time.
First off, you are going to have to isolate what is binding. Do you know which access is binding up? Once it is bound up, with the machine powered down can you turn the lead screw by hand? If not I’m thinking you could loosen the locking collars one at a time on the stepper motors, and then see if you can turn the lead screw.
Just an idea, I don’t have an XR table, just trying to help you isolate.
the motor closest to home position is what/where its binding at. i can check again this evening if it does it again and see if i can turn the lead screw.
Can you check to see if it’s the ballscrew assembly binding, or the motor? Are the two stepper motors the same? Maybe disconnect the stepper motors and then operate them to see if the motor in question will run with no load.
It’s almost sounds like one motor is turning faster then the other. Does it work at a slower speed?
when we adjusted the machine 2 weeks ago i didnt have any binding problems, it ran the break in program perfect. it does seem that the Y2 motor is spinning slower than Y1, that did come to mind as well. it will jog no problem under 400 IPM
can you clarify what you mean by disconnect the stepper motors?
I was thinking just having the motors disconnected from the lead screws and setting on the side of your machine. Still hooked to the electronics so you can see if it binds when turning at speed with nothing hooked to it. You will need to disconnect both of them so the other one doesn’t try and move the gantry by itself.
One other thing when it binds up you should be able to measure the distance on each side to see if one side is moving more then the other. You might have to measure when it is homed and get a reference mark to measure from.
Another thought if you just jog the machine to the home position and then move the access at high speed does it still bind. Maybe something is wrong in the homing/limit switch setup and it is putting the machine in a bind when it is homed.
I have to go do chores, I’ll be back after while.
Tim
so unscrew the lead screw bearing assembly unit from the motors? I think that 4 allen head screws?
Like I said I don’t have an XR table. I was thinking you could remove the stepper motors easily, after looking at the manual I can see that is not the case. I wish I could be more help but not having an XR table and not being in front of your table I can only through out ideas.
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all good Tim , i appreciate the help thank you
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Sam, Any luck isolating where it is binding?
I did……I think. So I left the machine on so the motors were warm before I started, I honed the machine and the same thing happened. It bound up about 2-3” on the Y2 and the Y1 was about 4 or so inches when I stopped it.
I moved the gantry around several times and rehomed it again and did the same. At this point I moved the limit switch out or forwarded to see if this would help, I would say that it did because after than it didn’t bind up, however I did notice that powder cost was chipping where it was binding also so I scraped off what was loose and sanded with Emory cloth to smooth it out, that seemed to have fixed it , or at least it didn’t bind up anymore last night.
I then adjusted my Kerf setting to get my 3” test squares closer to 3”, I went from factory setting of 0.074” to 0.060”, then to 0.056” and finally to 0.0.50” for the Kerf on the 3rd square and I was 0.005” off from 3” on one side and about 0.019” or so on the other side. So adjusting the kerf did make my part more square.
Reason I asked about the motors being warm is the Trumpf Trupunch 5000 and our Trumpf CO2 laser do not like being cold, as well as our Mazak machines. They have to warm up some before we use them in our sheet metal shop.
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Glad you got it figured out.
Sam, before I even turn my machine on each day I use it, I blow all the dust off the machine since that metal dust goes everywhere and grinding debris gets on everything. I then put a lightweight oil on every inch of the ball screws. I then fire up my machine and move it around. getting rid of all the dust and keeping fresh oil on the machine has kept it working perfectly since day one with no binding. Are you doing any kind of maintenance like this?
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Do I do this every time I use my machine? Short answer NO, I have a total of 30 minutes COMPLETE run time on my machine, but I have oiled it several times when I was fixing the issues I had recently.
The side my plasma is on doesn’t not get that dusty and dirty like my fab side except for what I cut on it, aluminum makes a mess for sure.
take an aerial picture of the wear patterns on each of your rail tubes and share. With it binding at the end of the table it is indicative of alignment between your ball screws and your rails or the relative elevation of the ball screws and rails. If you home your machine, you can loosen your ball screws all the way and since the mounts at each end of the table have some play the ball screw assembly/motor will auto align the screws with the rails then you can re-tighten the screws. you can do this process at both ends of the table.
this process will work assuming your rails are properly aligned with you table and gantry.
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Keep in mind I did scrap,grind, sand where the rollers are to help mitigate having a smooth surface, I did notice that the paint that had chipped up did contribute to some of the binding. I left my gantry in the middle of the machine and it did not bind when I moved it so you sound like your on to something with the home position with the rod bearing mounts.
Are these what you were looking for? I took a temp reading of the temperature in my shop on the machine to show how cold it was. This was the reading about 10 minutes after turning it on.
Also it bound up 3 times last night at 400ipms. I will attempt to adjust the bearings as you suggested this weekend.
The last several times i went into my garage it was in the 20s and 30s and i can fire up the XR and jog it at 400ipm with no issues. If you cannot then you still have some tuning to do. I would do the alignment of the screws and see how it does after that.
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I will do this this weekend