Jeff_Birt
05-30-2007, 10:26 PM
About a month ago Ted Grinnel posted the following on the awwcw.com forum as he was having trouble posting here. I asked for his permission to copy it over here but forgot until I had probe problems tonight. First I'll post Teds tip and them my own...
Ted Grinnel:
I put my machine back together today after a Z-motor problem and started scanning a rather large project (12 hour). The machine stopped after 15 minutes and posted "Check Probe". Each time the machine would continue scanning after I pushed the enter button.
This reaccured 4 times before I decided it was not just a glitch. I checked the ribbon cable and plug connector, no help - another 3 occurances. At this rate it was going to take me 2 days to complete this scan.
I decided to find out what this probe was made of. I took it apart and found that the contacts were dirty. Imagine that 700 hours of scan and the contacts are already dirty - go figure.
I cleaned them and recoated them with di-electric compound. The project is still running 8 hours later.
By the way di-electric compound is a silicone grease that is used on electric connection to keep water out. You can pick some up at your auto parts house, used to be used on points in distributors, not used on all electric connectors in you car.
I was getting a Z-stall error a few minutes into the scan. Looking into the machine the probe looked like it was stuck at and angle. Testing with the sensor test menu revealed it seemed to be working though. Fllowing Ted's lead I removed the three screws holding the probe together. What I found is that one of the copper contact bars had popped loose from the plastic where it had been heat staked down. I plugged in the soldering iron and staked it back down. Cleaned off the old dialectric grease and applied a little new stuff. It's been scanning happily for two hours now :)
Ted Grinnel:
I put my machine back together today after a Z-motor problem and started scanning a rather large project (12 hour). The machine stopped after 15 minutes and posted "Check Probe". Each time the machine would continue scanning after I pushed the enter button.
This reaccured 4 times before I decided it was not just a glitch. I checked the ribbon cable and plug connector, no help - another 3 occurances. At this rate it was going to take me 2 days to complete this scan.
I decided to find out what this probe was made of. I took it apart and found that the contacts were dirty. Imagine that 700 hours of scan and the contacts are already dirty - go figure.
I cleaned them and recoated them with di-electric compound. The project is still running 8 hours later.
By the way di-electric compound is a silicone grease that is used on electric connection to keep water out. You can pick some up at your auto parts house, used to be used on points in distributors, not used on all electric connectors in you car.
I was getting a Z-stall error a few minutes into the scan. Looking into the machine the probe looked like it was stuck at and angle. Testing with the sensor test menu revealed it seemed to be working though. Fllowing Ted's lead I removed the three screws holding the probe together. What I found is that one of the copper contact bars had popped loose from the plastic where it had been heat staked down. I plugged in the soldering iron and staked it back down. Cleaned off the old dialectric grease and applied a little new stuff. It's been scanning happily for two hours now :)