Been cutting on machine yesterday and this morning, no problems. Light work. Have just tried to manually jog x axis to front left of machine ready to start a new cut. All of a sudden screeching grinding noise from left hand y2 stepper. You could see x axis had been thrown out of square due to right hand Y stepper motor working fine. unplugged left hand y2 stepper and re squared x axis, reset everything, checked all obvious mechanical connections, nothing loose, nothing jammed. Tried manually jogging machine again, Z & X no problems and Y was okay in small incremental movements, but when you continually try to jog forward same grinding screeching noise and left hand side has locked up and thrown X out of square again. do I automatically assume that stepper motor is faulty? Surely if it was faulty it would work at all?Machine only couple months old. apart from swapping suspect left hand Z2 stepper with Z stepper to confirm fault- is there any other diagnosis I can do? any checks I can run through control? thanks
Stepper motor fault is the least likely - you can check by taking it off the machine (and unplug the Y motor) and seeing if it runs. The usual culprits are something working loose - motor coupler grub screws, screws holding nut blocks, or bearing failure/lock collars loose. Alex.
Thanks guys, fixed. I stripped down both end of LH Y2 axis, and at motor end there was excess tension in coupling that joins onto stepper motor. When I loosened grub screw it sprang back. all now appears to be working well, cut last project okay. many thanks- until next time!
