Bot making a loud noise and sudden jolt

[hrdwrkr]

If any one could help it would be great. I have posted about this before and have tried some suggestions but I am still having issues. this is happening a lot. When my bot is traveling along the x axis (either forward or backwards) it will try to lock up and stop, make a loud clanking noise and then continue on in the direction that it was going. Some of the last suggestions that I have performed are regularly taking out my laptop battery to eliminate static and I have also gone through and grounded all of the bot's frame to my electrical ground. i have checked all of my gears and rails. there is nothing binding. i looks and sounds like my bot hits a groundhog in its path and then continues on. i have a prs 48x96. only about 3 years old. i have a video that i can send anyone if that would help them but i wasn't able to attach it to this post.
thanks for the help.
Dennis

[kevin]

I had all kinds of mysery problems with using a laptop running a shopbot.

I know they say you can use a laptop .I put my sons computer to see if my mystery problems would disapear it was like I had a new machine .

I know that the faster you run the bot the more deman you but on the computer

Since using a new computer no mystrey problem .Try an easy fix then go from there

[gc3]

post a link to video

[phil_o]

I don't have anything to add to help with the cause of the problem but I have only used a laptop with my Shopbot for over 5 years. I have never had a problem like the one you describe or any other issue caused by the computer.

[CNYDWW]

If you remove the laptop battery and charger then push the power button to discharge the static and this still happens. It's probably not a static issue. I only had that issue with another cnc machine under heavy cutting. I would have to do that once a day or every six hours of cut time. Wait for Brady and the others. I'm sure they'll help.

Regards
Randy

[hrdwrkr]

for some reason i cant convert my 3gp video file to a file that will work with the forum. if anyone wants i can email the video directly to them for viewing.
thanks again for the help.

[Brady Watson]

Kick it up to YouTube, then post a link...

-B

[myxpykalix]

I think i may have commented on this before. Well me know its either mechanical or electrical. Now lets think it through to try to figure it out.

Answer a couple questions to try to isolate it.

How often does this happen?
Does it happen when cutting a particular product (like mdf)?
Does it happen if you run your file while aircutting (no load on it)?
Does it occur in the same location when you are cutting?
Can you put your hand on the stepper motor and feel anything abnormal inside the motor when it happens?

A clanking noise makes me think its mechanical, however if you had bad gears inside a stepper it would do that constantly instead of once in a while.

You say it does this while traveling in the X axis, are you referring to when the carriage is jogging back and forth, or when the bot is cutting something under load?

Does it do this on 2D files or 3D files?

[jdervin]

Is your problem anything like this?

http://youtu.be/xoWKC5_1DGA

[gc3]

Is your problem anything like this?

http://youtu.be/xoWKC5_1DGA


oohhh that hurts


and the answer is?

[scottbot]

Dennis,
I use a laptop to drive my ShopBot too and have had exactly the same problem you describe. The cause in my case turned out to be the wireless transmitter/receiver on the laptop. If I make sure to turn the wireless off I never have the problem. If I forget to do that I get a reminder in short order.

I hope this turns out to be your problem because it's an easy fix.

Scott

[hrdwrkr]

Jack, there is no consistency or frequency to when it decides to have an episode.
It happens whether 3D, 2D, under load, air cutting or even jogging to a location point. The only partial frequency is it seems to USUALLY happen within the first two feet of the machine whether you are starting and going out into the field or if you are returning to the front corner of the machine.
I have taken the gears off of the stepper motors and checked for wear (there is none) I have check the long track with gears on it under the x rail (no wear). i have even checked the side of the x frame to see if the gear on the motor is rubbing or catching on the side of the bot frame. i have watched to see if the bearing wheels (whatever the wheels are that the car travels on) are jumping off of the rail and there is no movement in them. I have not had my hand on any stepper motor at the time of incident. it is a Loud clank that i can hear across my shop. it makes a sudden stop like what is on the youtube video but it does not make the "chatter" or grinding that the one on the video has. it makes a quick stop-clank and then keeps going. it does not disturb the carve only my pulse rate. i am concerned that it is causing undo wear and tear and creating a larger problem that will eventually stop my production.
the video that i shot was from my phone and i was finally able to upload it to youtube. it happens about 17 seconds into the video (like you could miss it)
hope this works.
any advice helps. this has been going on now for literally about a year.
http://youtu.be/Mig_GRdowHc

[hrdwrkr]

Scott, i am actually running wireless though. I usually design in the house or in my upstairs office. my upstairs desk top is wireless to the house as is my laptop that i run the bot off of.
Is anyone else running wireless successfully?

[jerry_stanek]

how do you transfer you cut files and do you run them off the desktop or from a file folder on the shopbot computer?

[Brady Watson]

oohhh that hurts


and the answer is?

Low COM speed stalling motors...

Check speed with SpeetTest.exe in ProgramFiles/ShopBot3/Diagnostics, with SB3 closed.

-B

[adrianm]

Scott, i am actually running wireless though. I usually design in the house or in my upstairs office. my upstairs desk top is wireless to the house as is my laptop that i run the bot off of.
Is anyone else running wireless successfully?
I used to run a wireless network on the design and control PC without any problems. I did make sure that I transferred the files to the local hard disk before running them though.

[kevin]

Low COM speed stalling motors...

Check speed with SpeetTest.exe in ProgramFiles/ShopBot3/Diagnostics, with SB3 closed.

-B

Normal I don't say a word on this .This happened to me I lost production showing up Sunday trying to fix .
Sometimes we make things more complicated than they are .

[scottbot]

Dennis,
I think something got lost in my explanation. I use wireless in the house too. My design computer and my production computer are the same.
My point is to turn the wireless off on your laptop when using it to run your Bot.

My laptop has a little slider switch on the right hand corner to activate/deactivate the laptop's wireless. I make sure to turn that off when cutting. The wireless network in the house is still active but the radio in the laptop is turned off and is not affected by it.
Try it and see if it makes any difference to your problem.

Scott

[Brady Watson]

My point is to turn the wireless off on your laptop when using it to run your Bot.

Scott

...and don't forget you've done this when you need to get on the network or you'll pull your hair out! :D

-B

[hrdwrkr]

Scott, just to make sure we are on the same page...the lap top that i run the machine off of in the shop is not the machine that i design on. i design upstairs in my office (above my shop) on my desktop and then i save to my large server. down in the shop from my wireless laptop i pull up the file from the server, again by wireless, and then run the machine. are you saying that after i pull the file down from the server via wireless turn the wireless off while the machine is running. after that turn the wireless on prior to downloading the next file?


I am also going out right now to check the speettest file and see what is going on. i will post that in a bit.

[jerry_stanek]

where do you put the file you pull down from the network. I just used to just run the file from my network but sometimes it would just quit. Now I download the file to my desktop and run from there no more problems.

[hrdwrkr]

Brady, i ran the speed test twice. the first was a 72 and the second one was 74. i am attaching a snap shot of the test for you to see. i am also posting a snap shot of other diagnostic information the machine is running. quick question on that...is there a way to increase the max file lines? there are some files that i have that i have not been able to load because the file is to large to cut.
thanks again

[Brady Watson]

You should throw some more memory into that machine...Max files line limit is directly linked with physical memory on the control computer.

The other thing that could be causing your troubles is something running in the background. This could be something as stupid as a program looking for updates in the background, a program silently running or even a program looking for a security dongle - EVEN if the program that requires the key isn't even open!

Something is choking your communication stream while you are running, interrupting it. You have to find out what this is. The control computer should be 'vanilla' - absolutely NO virus software, Windows Automatic Updates and Security Center permanently turned off in Services as well as any other non-essential software. The only software that you should have on that machine is SB3 and PartWorks.

If it was my laptop, I would wipe it or buy a new hard drive and load a fresh copy of Windows, loading only what is essential. You have to look at this computer as an extension of the ShopBot. It has to be up to CNC duty...that means, no checking ebay or Facebook and any other honkey tonk website that could pull down a virus either...

-B

[scottbot]

Dennis,
Yes that's it. Turn the wireless off on the laptop while running the Bot.
At least that has been my experience. I just cannot run my Bot if the wireless is turned on on my laptop. Crashes and bangs something horrible.

Let me know if this works for you.

Scott