Clean X-Axis rails ...

[Ron Smith]

I'm in the middle of a current project and had the machine stop and display this message. I have been stopping every 10-15 minutes and vacuuming out all of the dust and chips. I have used a brush and a rag to clean all of the rails, but it won't continue.

I had to stop the machine, remove the project ... clean the rails and now I have to restart. This means I've lost over 2 hours and the materials for this project. Is there a method to clean the X-rails without stopping and removing the project?

I tried calling LHR but no one was home ...

Thanks,
Ron

[pkunk]

I'm in the middle of a current project and had the machine stop and display this message. I have been stopping every 10-15 minutes and vacuuming out all of the dust and chips. I have used a brush and a rag to clean all of the rails, but it won't continue.

I had to stop the machine, remove the project ... clean the rails and now I have to restart. This means I've lost over 2 hours and the materials for this project. Is there a method to clean the X-rails without stopping and removing the project?

I tried calling LHR but no one was home ...

Thanks,
Ron
I've never had an x-axis rail message in over 40 hours of use. Try air. maybe you have a chip in there somewhare that vac & brush can't find.

[Ron Smith]

Pkunk,

I had raised the head so I could access the rails, but then had to remove the board because I kept getting the message. Once I removed the board, I couldn't get it lined up good enough, so I aborted and started over. I must have gotten it clean, because it worked fine for the re-start on the program and ran without a hitch. You were probably right in a chip being over a sensor or something, but I guess it's gone now. Here is the finished sample. I'm going to redo it on cherry and leave off the seashells.

Thanks again,
Ron

[Dan-Woodman]

Ron
Sometimes I just lift the lid (witch stops everthing) blow the dust away, close lid and press enter.

[cmorlier]

The "Clean X Axis Rails" message is a little misleading, because what we call the X axis is the feed axis and there really aren't any rails. I've got it on my list to improve this message.

The most common cause for this message is boards that vary in thickness along their length. As the board gets thicker, it wedges itself against the head and the motor reaches a point where it just can't keep up with the commanded motion. I have also seen saw dust cause this, if too much builds up on top of the board, but that usually requires a lot of carving. Other causes are if the head compression is too high or there is a problem with the X drive. You can check the head compression, with a bathroom scale. Just put it in the machine so the compression rollers go where you feet would go, and the weight is visible through the middle of the machine. It should read 80 +/-5 lbs.

As always, if you have any questions or find any problems, give us a call.

[pkunk]

The "Clean X Axis Rails" message is a little misleading, because what we call the X axis is the feed axis and there really aren't any rails. I've got it on my list to improve this message.

The most common cause for this message is boards that vary in thickness along their length. As the board gets thicker, it wedges itself against the head and the motor reaches a point where it just can't keep up with the commanded motion. I have also seen saw dust cause this, if too much builds up on top of the board, but that usually requires a lot of carving. Other causes are if the head compression is too high or there is a problem with the X drive. You can check the head compression, with a bathroom scale. Just put it in the machine so the compression rollers go where you feet would go, and the weight is visible through the middle of the machine. It should read 80 +/-5 lbs.

As always, if you have any questions or find any problems, give us a call.
A feature to be able to cycle the feed rolls so that we could vacuum the undersides of sticky residue would be useful. With pine, I've had the sandpaper come around just totally covered.

[BobHill]

Ron,

Also, you might lose the time, but if you remove your work piece, and clean, you should put the piece back in, reboot, and start your project all over, using the SAME setting you did originally. You'll should find that your CW will remeasure and start to cut/carve just as it did before without even cutting a flack differently than it did originally. I've found it to be that exact and found that to be true when I did a test to see just what would happen. You will waste the time you had used before, but won't waste any wood, unless, of course, there is another reason, such as previously outlined.

Bob Hill

[Dan-Woodman]

I have also started a program over , but right before it started cutting , lifted the lid , removed the bit let it cut back to the spot it stopped and reincerted the bit .

[David M.]

Great solution, this is a good topic here, I've waisted some wood needlessly looking back, it hadn't occured to me to rerun the program. But it makes sense, the only potential issue I can think of would come in when the machince tries to find the top surface and finds possible carving. if this happens you would just stop it, and start over and do it manually 2nd time round.

[BobHill]

That hunting for the surface never happened in my case, it did the surface check on the outside 3½" roller space I left, so there was no cutting in the area for it to check and fail.

Bob

[David M.]

The piece I lost position on during cutting was due to power failure and the machine had cut some 6" into the board, so I believe it would have had this issue, upon restart, but this would be situational.

[BobHill]

Lost of electricity was what caused mine to quit also (not unknown here in Florida during thunderstorms<g>. I was surprised and very pleased to see the accuracy especially when I removed the piece and made no mark for what it's position was and did the reboot and start.

Bob

[cmorlier]

Just FYI on the surface find, if you see that it is going to touch on an area where the board has been carved (or just has a feature that could cause problems), press the STOP key during the surface find operation. When you press STOP, you will get an option to Abort, Retry, or Jog. If you select jog, you can jog the bit to the location of the first surface touch. There is also an option called "Jog Touch" in the options menu so that it will always ask you to jog to the surface find position.

[BobHill]

Jogging after a STOP, now thats great to know. Thanks, I've noted that one too.

Bob Hill