Axis Stall?

[cycollins]

I had gotten my machine 3 or 4 weeks ago and had been gingerly preparing it for use during my spare time. I waited for a shipment of the new lube and fixed up the flex shaft. I put it all together, made myself a project and fired it up. It was 22 minutes into the project and the machine had a distressingly large amount of sawdust everywhere (it was a pretty deep relief). Suddenly I got the message "Axis Stall" and the carving stopped. OK. So, I hit "Stop" to generally let it know that I was abandoning this project, unlocked carriage, raised it, removed the workpiece, turned it over (it was just a test piece anyway and it was 2" in depth, so there was no fear of piercing) and tried to restart the project. I cracked the baby down on the new workpiece, locked it, closed the front cover, fired up the project, and... nothing. It told me to close the front cover. The front cover was very closed already. I tried testing the sensors and sure enough, the front cover sensor indicated "open", despite the fact that it was closed. So, I figured, there might be a mechanical problem with the mini-switches near the cover hinges. Nope. I can here them clicking closed when I close the cover. And here's a wierd one: when I open and close the cover in quick succession (an obvious frustration sign on my part), I occasionally notice that the carving head turns anywhere from a half-turn to a full-turn or two. Just a little burst of spinning. Wierd. I then vacuumed out the unit with a Craftsman shop vacuum (Is that static safe? I just read all the scary stuff about the saw-dust removal.). Still no joy in the front cover department, which despite being quite closed insists on being understood as open. Now, some of the stuff I've been hearing on this site recently, about how prone the thing is to being zapped in normal operation, has really made me wonder if this things is uable. Could I have fried the motherboard already by having too much sawdust flying around. Does it strike anyone else as odd that a carving machine should be alergic to sawdust? Does this sound like a return-to-sears situation, or is there some well-know way to reset the sense of the door-open sensors?

[RC Woodworks]

You know what my last one started doing that also. I am seeing more and more post about the cover being open. Are you running the 1.2 update? I think it is in the software. Until the 1.2 update you did not see this problem.

Now my homing sensor broke and the z axis came loose so I starting errors after that to check cut motor, axis stall and the cover.

Just waiting now for my new machine from Sears

[cycollins]

So, I just made my first project tonight (3/18) and it told me to upgrade. I generally do what I'm told by machines that are a little new to me, so I did it. I think that makes it the newest possible firmware upgrade. BTW do you have to do anything besides load the firmware to the memory card? Is there a menu option to upload it into the CW machine or is all the logic on the memory card? Anyway, I've never done a project on any other version of the firmware, so I have nothing to compare it to. I found someone on the TroubleShooting forum (which is where I probably should have posted this) who said that after a great deal of time with CW on the phone, that they told him to pull a small gray ribbon-cable behind the z-motor assembly and that that ought to fix it. Yikes! Sounds a little scary to me.

DCC

[cycollins]

...I found that the "close cover" error was due to the large gray ribbon cable at the top of the PC board behind the z-truck home position being completely loose. How did it get that way. No idea. Now I'm getting sensor problems. THe unit can't find the board edge and it claims I need to clear the board sensor. Diagnostics show the board sensor working pretty well. It only says "Clear board sensor" after moving about 3" to the right of the left edge. Wierd. Depressing. Frustrating. I would sure love to get my machine into doube-digit dependability percentage.

DCC

[cycollins]

I wonder if a moderator would move this thread into the trouble-shooting section. I was new to the forum when I started this and thought the hardware section was the appropriate place for such issues.

Thanks,
DCC