Mayo
09-29-2016, 04:58 AM
I've been plagued by motor noises ever since I bought my Shopbot and had tried pretty much everything. Nothing worked. This was originally a PRT48x96 that I later upgraded to the 4G. Motors are the PK296A1A with the gear boxes built on.
Changed the pinions, greased the racks, changed the turnbuckle tension, and was even tempted to call Miss Cleo's psychic hotline.
Well yesterday I had to get a job out and for some reason the motors were making more noise than usual. Moving the gantry in the X direction it was jerky and shaking rather than smooth.
Then I got the dreaded missed steps again on one motor, which tweaked the gantry and lifted the V-rollers.
I thought maybe the X geko drivers might be the cause so I shut everything off, moved them into the Y and Z positions on the board and put the Y and Z drivers in the X drivers positions. No change.
Then I thought I'd pull off the Y and Z motors since they worked fine, and put them into the X positions. I pulled off the X2 motor and the Y motor and then realized I would also have to switch the bracket positions because they're mounted from different sides.
After taking the bracket off the X2 motor I thought I would take off the gear box and see what it looked like inside there.
Very interesting. Spinning the gears back and forth made the familiar annoying clickety clack sound. Inside the gear box was a surprising lack of grease. There was some but not enough was actually in the gearing.
I put more grease inside the gear box and thoroughly worked it into the gears. Reassembled X2 and checked out X1 and found the same issue. Greased it up and put everything back together with the X motors in their original positions. I decided not to try swapping the Y and the Z motors into the X motor positions.
All I can say is it now sounds smooth and runs much smoother.
Still not as smooth as the Y motor moves the router assembly but WAY BETTER than it was.
If you have an older machine check your gear boxes for grease if you're getting noisy and jerky movement in the X directions!
I don't know that it was the cause of the missed steps but if the gears were binding, I think it could have been.
Changed the pinions, greased the racks, changed the turnbuckle tension, and was even tempted to call Miss Cleo's psychic hotline.
Well yesterday I had to get a job out and for some reason the motors were making more noise than usual. Moving the gantry in the X direction it was jerky and shaking rather than smooth.
Then I got the dreaded missed steps again on one motor, which tweaked the gantry and lifted the V-rollers.
I thought maybe the X geko drivers might be the cause so I shut everything off, moved them into the Y and Z positions on the board and put the Y and Z drivers in the X drivers positions. No change.
Then I thought I'd pull off the Y and Z motors since they worked fine, and put them into the X positions. I pulled off the X2 motor and the Y motor and then realized I would also have to switch the bracket positions because they're mounted from different sides.
After taking the bracket off the X2 motor I thought I would take off the gear box and see what it looked like inside there.
Very interesting. Spinning the gears back and forth made the familiar annoying clickety clack sound. Inside the gear box was a surprising lack of grease. There was some but not enough was actually in the gearing.
I put more grease inside the gear box and thoroughly worked it into the gears. Reassembled X2 and checked out X1 and found the same issue. Greased it up and put everything back together with the X motors in their original positions. I decided not to try swapping the Y and the Z motors into the X motor positions.
All I can say is it now sounds smooth and runs much smoother.
Still not as smooth as the Y motor moves the router assembly but WAY BETTER than it was.
If you have an older machine check your gear boxes for grease if you're getting noisy and jerky movement in the X directions!
I don't know that it was the cause of the missed steps but if the gears were binding, I think it could have been.