Gremlins?

[mgsundgaard]

This is a little long, sorry. Last Friday I had a small project to carve, 3 small pieces with a word carved in each piece. I finished the first 2 pieces with absolutely no problems. On the third piece, about 20% of the way through the machine stopped due to a "z-axis stall error". I did some rail cleaning, cleaned the encoder wheel and made sure the ribbon cable was seated. After restarting the project it ran for a little while then I got a "y-axis stall". To make a long story short I got numerous z, y and a few x-axis stall errors after attempts at cleaning, etc. that I was never able to get rid of. After searching the forum threads on line for these problems it appeared that I was doing all the right things to no avail. I resolved that my next step was to send it in for repair. This morning, Monday, I went out to try to do a little more troubleshooting, loaded the piece in and it ran perfectly.
Has anyone else experienced these gremlins that slip away from you over the weekend? I have to believe there is still something amiss that may be heat buildup related or something.

[mtylerfl]

Hard to say for sure...

Could be the shop was too cold (I keep mine above 65°), could be debris interfering with the truck movement, or debris on the encoder(s), could be the bit wasn't fully seated.

This time of year, common (avoidable) problems are a cold shop, and static electricity zapping memory cards and/or the machine. Keep the shop toasty and ground yourself (touch a light switch screw to dissipate static) before touching memory cards or the machine.

[PCW]

Could it have been caused by electric draw. Where you doing anything different? Maybe running something on the circuit at the same time.

[mtylerfl]

Could it have been caused by electric draw. Where you doing anything different? Maybe running something on the circuit at the same time.

Good point - that would cause problems like that, too.

[PCW]

Mike

It could be a combination of both.

[mgsundgaard]

Thanks for the input. I do have an air compressor on the same circuit which did come on between the pieces I was running as I used it due blow debris from the parts and the machine. I also heard that some people have put ionizers on the nozzles of the compressed air line to eliminate static. I am going to give the machine a tear down cleaning, move it to another circuit and hopefully that solves the problem long term. Thanks again.

[jab73180]

another thing to look at is if the encoder disc is warped at all. if the disc touches the magnet, it will throw an error code.

[TerryT]

I have noticed that at times, especially after running several projects it's little brain gets overloaded. Resetting the machine by turning it off
AND unplugging it can fix alot of problems.