[webgeek]

I love my NM-200 and have put it though hundreds of hours of milling thus far. It works great and is clearly limited by my poor machining skills. With that said, it has a few quirks I wanted to ask about to see if there is a fix as they can be annoying.

1) When the coolant relay turns on, it blanks out the computer monitor for a second. It looks like it's drawing too much power and causing the monitor to reset. Kinda weird, been doing it for months so it's not a huge deal I was just curious about it.

2) When I leave the machine idle and not running a program for a while it stops taking input. After something like 30-60 minutes of just sitting there I can no longer jog the axis' any more. It's odd though as a long running program has no trouble. This is VERY anoying as it's screwed up a few jobs due to forcing me to close and re-open Mach to get back to working again due to a long delay between tool changes. This causes me to need to re-home and re-touch off the work - losing the little accuracy I already had.

3) Finally, on several occasions, I've had the spindle just stop as it was bogging down a bit. It's more frequent at lower speeds but I've had it once at high speeds. The machine was doing some work, but I don't run anything larger than 3/8" drill bits and 1/4" end mills so it's not as if I was hogging or anything like it. The spindle does seem to bog down an odd amount when I start a cut which seems kinda funny to me too. I'm guessing this is the dreaded "spindle problem" people have talked about on the forum and supposedly this didn't occur to too many machines? It's pretty frustrating as it causes me to break bits via unattended crashes but it's also pretty rare. I think it's rare for me as I usually do all my cutting at max RPMs.

4) I get a message in Mach - often but not always - about "simulating spindle speed" due to a lack of feedback. I have no idea what this means.

5) Just once I had the machine stop running g-code right in the middle of a problem. No error, no warning, nothing. It just stopped running code and I had to close and re-open Mach to fix it. Never happened before or since. It still makes me nervous though.

I'd say that about 95% of the time my jobs finish without problems and so I just don't concern myself with it that much but as I try and become a better machinist I'd like to learn more about how to fix these things and what causes them. Thanks!

-Mike

[kvom]

Mine's a series 1 with motherboard in the CD100.

Never had problem 1, but just started using coolant relay in testing.

I've had issue# 2 (I think it's the same as problem # 5) numerous times. Before stopping mach I write down the DRO settings, and then reenter them after restart. Of course you have to manually ref the axes to 0, but at least you don't have to re-home and touch off.

[screen]

As far as I know, most of your machine's problems may caused by Mach 3 software. You can uninstall your Mach 3 completely and then re-install it again. However, you have to keep all your profiles and license file at least. If you knew all the settings of your profile, after install Mach 3, try to make a new profile.
This is not Mach 3 software's defects or bugs. Just sometimes there are some conflicts between the software or devices which installed in the computer.

[hornby chopper]

Hi

im having the same problem 's with spindel bogging down and that is in aluminum with 1/8" ball nose and the problem with it just stopping some where in the program.

those problem are anoying but the one that i hade happen to me yesterday was the x axis just stopped and the machine other axis keep going.

screwed the name plate that i was working on 5 hrs in the scrap?

the x axis was gecko faulted i have no idea y it was not do to heat test showed 73 farh.

spindel bogging down and i have broken 6 1/8" ball end mills on this job

$ 74 in end mills $ 30 material and 5 hours this is what you get your self in to when you wan't computerized toys

and yes i still really like my novakon nm-200 2

[John Gamble]

webgeek
I am experiencing some similar issues. Trying to narrow them down with Novakon.
1) When the coolant relay turns on, it blanks out the computer monitor for a second. It looks like it's drawing too much power and causing the monitor to reset. Kinda weird, been doing it for months so it's not a huge deal I was just curious about it.
If you have'nt already, try plugging the monitor power into an indepandant power source (other than the mill).

2) When I leave the machine idle and not running a program for a while it stops taking input. After something like 30-60 minutes of just sitting there I can no longer jog the axis' any more. It's odd though as a long running program has no trouble. This is VERY anoying as it's screwed up a few jobs due to forcing me to close and re-open Mach to get back to working again due to a long delay between tool changes. This causes me to need to re-home and re-touch off the work - losing the little accuracy I already had.
5) Just once I had the machine stop running g-code right in the middle of a problem. No error, no warning, nothing. It just stopped running code and I had to close and re-open Mach to fix it. Never happened before or since. It still makes me nervous though.
Ditto!
Tomorrow we are going to swap computers in an effort to isolate the problem.

Suggest you email or call Novakon and report the issues. They will open a trouble report. It also highlights specific problems that a number of users may be experiencing.
Will report back with any results.
John

[Frogblender]

2) When I leave the machine idle and not running a program for a while it stops taking input. After something like 30-60 minutes of just sitting there I can no longer jog the axis' any more. It's odd though as a long running program has no trouble. This is VERY anoying as it's screwed up a few jobs due to forcing me to close and re-open Mach to get back to working again due to a long delay between tool changes. This causes me to need to re-home and re-touch off the work - losing the little accuracy I already had. [/I]

Just a thought: try turning off all Windows power savings stuff: hard drive spin-down, sleep, etc. This might also require fiddling your computer's bios settings.

Also, Mach has the capability to "remember" where the DROs were when it was shut down, so you don't need to re-cal again. Although, if your definition of " no longer jog the axis" means "Mach DROs change while jogging, but mill doesn't move", then you're out of luck.

[hornby chopper]

O.k

i have tryed some things the spindel bogges down on my machine in plunge cuts with 1/8" end mill at 4500 and above.
this is tobe an issue with the vfd ( may be )


i have been faulting out x axis gecko for no reason till i changed my x with a axis drive now the stepper just has a nice soft hum when it runs but now faulting as of yet and the original x drive had no heat sink past on it.

the sudden stop of the machine is to be a software issue they say to save licens and profile then delete mach and re install ( have not tried this yet ) and i watched my machine and it was not sudden it stuters a few times first then stops

one thing that i got and working was the mpg from vistacnc.

i have yet to complete one job with out any problems

[John Gamble]

Progress Report:

1) When the coolant relay turns on, it blanks out the computer monitor for a second. It looks like it's drawing too much power and causing the monitor to reset. Kinda weird, been doing it for months so it's not a huge deal I was just curious about it.
If you have'nt already, try plugging the monitor power into an indepandant power source (other than the mill).
Plugging the monitor into an independant power source seems to have cured the issue.

Another issue I experienced was the spindle not starting for 5-10 minutes at startup, three days in a row.

Replaced power supply & that appears to have cured the problem.

2) When I leave the machine idle and not running a program for a while it stops taking input. After something like 30-60 minutes of just sitting there I can no longer jog the axis' any more. It's odd though as a long running program has no trouble. This is VERY anoying as it's screwed up a few jobs due to forcing me to close and re-open Mach to get back to working again due to a long delay between tool changes. This causes me to need to re-home and re-touch off the work - losing the little accuracy I already had.


5) Just once I had the machine stop running g-code right in the middle of a problem. No error, no warning, nothing. It just stopped running code and I had to close and re-open Mach to fix it. Never happened before or since. It still makes me nervous though.

Was unable to reproduce # 2-5 this evening after replacing the power supply. We will wait & see if this has been cured or if it is an intermittent issue.

John

[bob-morey]

Hi,
I have a NM200 V2 that I have experienced the intermittent shut downs like you guys mention. All axis loose power, and spindle stops. Restarting Mach 3 did not fix the problem I had to power down the pc and restart it. I uninstalled Mach 3 and reinstalled the latest version?? (3.043.022). I have not experienced any more complete shut downs, but now have experienced two sudden e-stop faults, ie machine running fine then suddenly estop is triggered. The good news is the axis still have power and recovery is easier but still a pain in the middle of a job. The first e-stop fault had the message "driver watchdog triggered". The machine was not even cutting at the time of fault so not sure what this means.

I have earlier version of Mach 3 running a Taig and a servo motor mill and neither have ever had the sudden stoppages like the NM200. I run them for days at a time with no issues.

I also experience the screen going blank when I turn coolant on off. Will try separate plug for monitor. Good idea.

Thanks, Bob