Shut down in middle of project

[GRASSHOPPER]

I was carving a project that was goung to take about 4 hours. I have carved this patern before so I am sure the patern is fine. About 1 hour into the carve the machine just stopped with the bit touching the wood. I had already opened the cover and cleaned out the chips and restarted the machine about 10 minutes with no problem. When it shut down the bit was touching the wood and the LCD display was blank. The motor and the flexshaft were barely warm to the touch so there didn't seem to be a heat problem any where. I cleaned teh chips out again, closed the cover and pressed enter. The LCD returned to the select patern point. Is there any way to salvage the situation and/or suggestions on what to do?

[Ike]

I was carving a project that was goung to take about 4 hours. I have carved this patern before so I am sure the patern is fine. About 1 hour into the carve the machine just stopped with the bit touching the wood. I had already opened the cover and cleaned out the chips and restarted the machine about 10 minutes with no problem. When it shut down the bit was touching the wood and the LCD display was blank. The motor and the flexshaft were barely warm to the touch so there didn't seem to be a heat problem any where. I cleaned teh chips out again, closed the cover and pressed enter. The LCD returned to the select patern point. Is there any way to salvage the situation and/or suggestions on what to do?

Almost sounds like static electricity, except it doesn't sound like you are using a DC system. Was the vac hose touching the machine while carving? The next thing would be a power surge is your CW plug into a series an air compressor or freezer, fridge is plug into? Or was the weather bad and the the electricity went off and on?

To save the project if you saved the mpc you can remove what was carved and restart the project. Or try just starting the project again and being a servo motor it should start at the same point and will carve what is carved. Don't worry it should not really carve just go through the motion until it reaches the area not carved. Then it will pick up where it left off. I have done this successfully a few times.

I am sure there must be a Tip and Tricks on how to go into designer and remove what was carved to pick up where it stopped. You can always post the mpc and a photo of the project showing where it stopped and other members can help. Or just try starting the carve over and let the CW go over what is carved until it reaches the rest.

Ike

[cestout]

As Ike said, it sounds like you had a power failure. You can just start the project over and "air carve" to the point where it left off, but since this is a long carve, you might want to mask the already carved area to save carving time. In designer, place a rectangular carved area over the already carved area and set it's depth to 0 (zero). Don't save it to disk, but upload it to your card as something like "fix".
Clint

[Ike]

There you go I forgot the exact procedure and Clint got it! I just hope you saved the mpc! If not starting it over will "air carve" as Clint said, lol better then I try to say! That was what I was trying to say, it will carve the same areas and depth so what is carved the bit will just think it is carving until it reaches the un-carved board. You will probably need to mask over the carved area so the machine can measure the board and has a starting point.

Ike

[GRASSHOPPER]

So, let me make sure I have this straight. I have not removed the board or done anything. I should be able to just call up the patern and start it over, correct? I'm not sure what you mean about the mask thing. Do I remove the memory card and try to erace the portion that was already carved and then start over? this seems more risky based on my limited experience.

The carver is on a circuit with the shop in the basement but I never do anything else when it is carving and there was no power outage and the whole house is on a surge protector.

Thanks for the help. I will hold off till I get verification.

[Digitalwoodshop]

Bruce,

Ike and the others have the salvage operation down... A Zero area or just let it run again....

Now the key to why it happened.... 2007..... Yes, 2007... The Year you joined... That year the Girl over in China that puts Glue on the L2 Coil on the Power Supply to keep it from vibrating... Well, she took a day off.... Her Replacement had long finger nails and absolutely hated changing the Glue or RTV Tube on the machine that injected the Glue on the Coil. Hence she put less and less on the coil and no one really noticed she didn't need to get her nails dirty replacing the Glue Tube as often for the whole day.... That was in late 2006... So a day's worth of Power Supply Production have had the Dreaded Broken L2 Coil in the Power Supply. That Power Supply Girl has been forbidden to take a day off since.... LOL....

On 4 machines, I have had 3 bad L2's.... You may think this is silly..... BUT... I can relate.... When I was making Picture Tubes for SONY in San Diego for 17 inch monitors in 1995... The Area I was responsible for got the Picture Tube just after it had the air sucked out and the end sealed... We Cut the Tabulator Off in the center between the pins of the tube. Next a Girl used a air operated caulking gun to squirt a computer timed air activated blob of this special High Voltage RTV between the pins that later would carry High Voltage. She then placed the plastic guide cap on the pins held by the RTV. The Girls were from a Temp Agency as the following year a little Fanuc Robot replaced her... So this girl filling in for the regular girl had long nails and hated replacing the RTV Tube.... She turned down the Computer time so less RTV was squirted out... 3 hours later the Tubes started showing up in final testing area where we lit them up and ran all kinds of test on them... The Fault was showing up as a Shorted or Arcing Electron Gun... At this time we were getting 100% Rejects... The FUR Started to FLY.... Quality Control Jumped on the Girls in the Clean Room where the Gun Parts were Welded.... They came out CLEAN.... Then to my area.... I had all the BRASS wanting Answers.... at 250 Tubes and hour..... A Bright QC Guy still looking at the Final Inspection area pulled off a base cap.... He had worked for ME then was promoted to the QA Dept in Engineering..... He saw how little RTV was on the pins and cap and KNEW HE had the ANSWER.... He ran to my area and checked the Computer timer.... It was turned WAY DOWN.... He set it back to normal.... It was 3 hours until a tube got to the Final Inspection area and tested GOOD..... The Problem had been found... Due to Room Temp we sometimes had to adjust the timer due to viscousity... so we could not lock it out.... Needless to say.... That Smart Temp... Able to turn down the timer was never seen again.... Due to Pallet RF ID Tags that had data written to them and when the Serial Number of the Tube was Assigned with the date we knew what tube to pull and have a group of Temps with wooden Q Tips and Mineral Spirits over a week remove the RTV and apply the correct ammount... Saving the Tubes... At a cost of a lot of Overtime...


SO your L2 on the power supply has finally SNAPPED.... It has snapped below the surface of the circuit board where it is bent over on the bottom of the board... The L2 is a Noise Filter in the output of the power supply and is in Series with the output and acts like a fuse when it snaps... Stopping the power.... I am betting with the power on, if you thump on the keyboard side of the machine you will make the LCD go off and come on..... I have even found that with a blank LCD.... Laying the machine on it's back or Muffler lets Gravity push it back into the Circuit board like a Carrot into the Ground...


A TV Guy can fix it... Or get a new Power Supply... We saw many L2's with the QC due to the Vibration... The Mass of the wound copper coil acts like a Lolly Pop and vibrated and turns the copper Wire a lighter color before it snaps.... Like bending copper house wire over and over until it snaps....

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question694.htm A Sony Picture Tube Electron Gun... The first picture and you can see the base cap and even see the black RTV at the top of the cap where the fins are.... And the 2nd picture... the 3 holes on the end... The Red Green Blue Electron Gun, with the Green in the Center.



Good Luck,


AL:roll:

:roll:He writes too much...:roll:

[GRASSHOPPER]

Al,

Thanks for all the info. Is it likely to make it through the carve if I just restart it or should I take it to get fixed? I assume your thumb nail pics are of the actual part since they didn't line up with the pics in the link you sent.

[Digitalwoodshop]

You can Chance it.... but you could snap a bit too.... In my opinion.... Get it fixed first.....

Yes, the L2 coil is the one that is normally bad... The 2nd picture shows the side profile and looking at the edge of the board....

The Wire is snapped within the board....

The Link was just to show what a picture tube Gun looks like and the base cap.

Good Luck,

AL

[GRASSHOPPER]

You were exactly right Al. I restarted it two times and it stopped pretty quick and if I tap on the key pad it goes on and off. Is there a set of instructions on how to get the power supply out? I tried a search and didn't come up with one. I could wave the white flag and ask the wife to find it but I hate to admit that she is better at the computer stuff than me. :)

[edzbaker]

Grasshopper,, pull the BOTTOM cover off,, using Al's pictures you can't miss the Power supply.

[GRASSHOPPER]

Thanks, I'll have to get on it tomorrow. Have another project for today.

[Digitalwoodshop]

First things first.... Un Plug machine... Remove bottom and remove the plugs to the power supply and remove the screws of the power supply. Print the pictures and give it to someone good with a Soldering Iron.... It is possible to destroy the board if someone is not good at this sort of thing... The bottom Copper Pad that the wire goes through will over heat and fall off...

Good Luck,

AL

[GRASSHOPPER]

I took the board to the only TV repair shop in town and two computer repair shops. The bench fees and estimated were all within $30 of the cost of a rebuilt board from LHR and there was no guarantee. Two of them pointed to other connections that were what they called "ringed" and could be bad.

I ordered a rebuilt board from LHR, installed it and started the carve over. There is a very small line where it met the old carve that can be hand worked out and it is doing fine. There is a lot more of that sealant all over the rebuilt board. If that is a known problem it is a shame that it isn't covered for longer.

[Darthmaul1964]

There you go I forgot the exact procedure and Clint got it! I just hope you saved the mpc! If not starting it over will "air carve" as Clint said, lol better then I try to say! That was what I was trying to say, it will carve the same areas and depth so what is carved the bit will just think it is carving until it reaches the un-carved board. You will probably need to mask over the carved area so the machine can measure the board and has a starting point.

Ike
I have had projects fail in the process and always started on new boards. I was worried if I tried again on the same board the alignment of the board might be off slightly from the first run and the part that "air carves" might not be exactly positioned the second time through. Is the machine that accurate at board measuring and placement that it would line up perfectly for second run through?

[fwharris]

I have had projects fail in the process and always started on new boards. I was worried if I tried again on the same board the alignment of the board might be off slightly from the first run and the part that "air carves" might not be exactly positioned the second time through. Is the machine that accurate at board measuring and placement that it would line up perfectly for second run through?

I would not call it perfect alignment on most cases but close enough that if you were not the one doing the carving you would have to study the carving to find the difference.