[rzmac]

Today I ran a job that was about 3.5 hours long on my X4+. Everything worked great, I shut-down for about 15 minutes for a break then went out to setup a new part.

I turned on the computer, started Mach3 and then turned on my x4+ - no issues. I tried to home the machine - cnc mode selected -> offset screen -> ref all to home and ran into some strange behaviour.

The Z-Axis homed okay, but the Y-axis moved about 2/3's of the way to the limit switch and stopped. When this happened, Mach3 set a 0.0000 value for the Y-axis and placed the mill in manual mode?!? I tried again, and the Y-axis homed, but the X-axis stuttered its way there and required three retries. Interestingly the mill did not get switched to manual mode in each false home situation - about 20% of the time as it turns out. I am able to move all axes at will and without issue by using the keyboard commands / GCode - the problem appears to be localized to the homing function.

I moved the axes to random positions and tried to re-home with varying degrees of success. Sometimes Z would work, sometimes Z and Y would work - X always requires at least one so-called restart.

I rebooted the controller PC at least 3 times but it did not seem to make difference. I have not messed with my Mach3 profile and the speeds / feeds I was using today were well within the X4's capabilities. Has anybody else experienced this sort of thing? I am going to leave the machine turned off until the morning, and I will try it again...


thanks,


steve

[rzmac]

So it works now... I left everything off for about three hours and somehow it has healed itself. I checked the parallel cable when I went out, but other than that I simply followed my normal startup routine. The machine homed as it should on the first attempt, and I subsequently homed it at least 7 times from various x,y,z locations with no incidents.

Could my issue have been heat related? The machine had been running steadily for about 3.5 hours prior to my observation of the problem:

6061
3/4" 3fl T2-PM-33012 PCT square end TiCN end-mill
3400 rpm
Climb cutting with virually no slots
25% step-over at 7 ipm cutting and 2.7 ipm helix engage
Depth-of-cut between 0.1 and 0.05
Fog-buster blowing mostly air

There were very few rapids in my program and at no time did the machine appear strained. My parameters may be a little different than what would be considered normal perhaps? I just got the X4+ a few weeks ago and am still pretty green...

I guess all I can do is see how it goes tomorrow. I have three more of the same operation to run so we will see what happens. Any advice??


thanks,


steve

Today I ran a job that was about 3.5 hours long on my X4+. Everything worked great, I shut-down for about 15 minutes for a break then went out to setup a new part.

I turned on the computer, started Mach3 and then turned on my x4+ - no issues. I tried to home the machine - cnc mode selected -> offset screen -> ref all to home and ran into some strange behaviour.

The Z-Axis homed okay, but the Y-axis moved about 2/3's of the way to the limit switch and stopped. When this happened, Mach3 set a 0.0000 value for the Y-axis and placed the mill in manual mode?!? I tried again, and the Y-axis homed, but the X-axis stuttered its way there and required three retries. Interestingly the mill did not get switched to manual mode in each false home situation - about 20% of the time as it turns out. I am able to move all axes at will and without issue by using the keyboard commands / GCode - the problem appears to be localized to the homing function.

I moved the axes to random positions and tried to re-home with varying degrees of success. Sometimes Z would work, sometimes Z and Y would work - X always requires at least one so-called restart.

I rebooted the controller PC at least 3 times but it did not seem to make difference. I have not messed with my Mach3 profile and the speeds / feeds I was using today were well within the X4's capabilities. Has anybody else experienced this sort of thing? I am going to leave the machine turned off until the morning, and I will try it again...


thanks,


steve

[syil canada]

Hi steve,

A long time ago I had the same issue, what I found Was by changing the parellel cable that better protects from external electrical / magnetic influances, the issue went away.

I hope that helps, if not let me know.

Keith

[rzmac]

Good idea - it has not happened again and I have really been putting the miles on my machine since my post. I know for sure that the cable I am using at the moment is not what would be considered 'high-quality'. Funny where we skimp on things....