Shopbot sitting for two years- your advice requested

[Ryan Richardson]

Greetings-
A buddy from Atlanta who's been looking to join the ranks of us Shopbotters called me yesterday. He's going tomorrow to look at a PRS machine that has been sitting in storage for two years or so (was bought used by a guy with the intention of starting a cabinet business- never happened) and he asked me what, if anything, he needs to do before powering it on to make sure everything works. I'm new to Shopbot ownership and would appreciate your thoughts.

The machine has a 2 Hp spindle- should this be good to start up after just blowing out the dust or is there more to it than that? Should the tracks be greased before trying to get it to move with a laptop loaded with the control software? Any other things that I may be missing?

Thanks in advance for your help-

Ryan Richardson

[jerry_stanek]

They say that you should hand spin the spindles every few weeks to keep the bearings lubed. I bought a used machine that was never opened and what I did was hand sun the spindle while it was on it's side and heating it with a heat gun to let the lube flow around the bearings. I did this every so often for 3 days before I mounted it and tried to run it. I have been the spindle now is 3 years old and runs like new.

[Ryan Richardson]

Jerry -thanks for your advice- the spindle and its function is definitely his biggest concern. Any thought on "warming up" the stepper motors? Or greasing tracks?

Thanks-

Ryan

[Brady Watson]

You can clean up the rails with a brown scotch pad and a WD40 dampened rag. Gear racks should be 1st cleaned by raking out the teeth with a metal bristle brush, then fresh grease applied. Table should be machined flat. Computer and control box (and VFD) should be blown out with compressed air.

For the spindle, you can make a heat box out of some insulation foam and using one of those 120v 5,000 watt space heaters to pre-heat that spindle up to 100-125 degrees for about 1 hr. That will put it into the operating range of the spindle & allow the grease to liquify enough so that when it is put upright, the grease will go where it needs to. Then turn it by hand, then run it under power. It takes a little while to heat up because there is a lot of metal there & the AL dissipates the heat.

-B

[Ryan Richardson]

Brady- thanks for your reply- I value your insight. I know that the spindle has been mounted (in the vertical position) for the time the unit has been in storage- does that change anything about your warm up procedure?

Thanks-

[Brady Watson]

Ryan,
It would not hurt to pre-warm it, by turning it by hand, then starting it up at the lowest RPM will help prevent the dreaded 'skidded bearing' problem all of this is attempting to avoid. It is much less critical sitting vertical than if it was laying on it's side.

-B

[gerryv]

You mentioned using a laptop with the control software loaded. I'm assuming that, by this, you are referring to bringing along a laptop with what is likely a new or quite new version of the software installed. In that case, it's likely that the controller on the machine will have an older version of the firmware installed on it. To be fair to the seller and yourself, it would be a good idea to do a firmware update from your laptop (Internet connection not needed) to make sure the controller and your laptop are talking to each other properly. There is info on the forum on how to do the firmware update - it's easy but it's slipped my mind. :-)

[jerry_stanek]

to do a firmware update you have to start out in preview mode with the shopbot off then do a UI command and then hit upgrade firmware and then turn the shopbot on.

[Ryan Richardson]

Guys- thanks much. The "test" session that was planned for the other day got cut short due to family commitments, so I'll pass this information along.

This may be a dumb question, but if the laptop in question is loaded with the latest (non-beta) shopbot control software, does it also have the firmware update installed for this hardware to do the update? Should I download the firmware update for the machine and email it to him to make sure it's right, or will the program know which type of machine it's plugged up to? I don't think there is wifi at this shop, so I'll want to make sure he's got what he needs before heading over-

Thanks again!

[jerry_stanek]

The firmware will be on your laptop within the SB software You have to update the firmware anytime you change computers or versions of the SB software.