I have a 1000 x 1000 C-beam I made about 2 years ago. Be using it every week since this time, with only minor issues. About a month ago I have a issue with the left Y axis which makes a noise and vibration. I have check all the connections and nuts which seem to be fine. But then can cause the left and right Y sides to get out of sync which are not square to each other and the X. I thinking there a issue with the wheels and/or the gantry connections being to tight/loose. Any ideas to check?
Myself, I would remove both Y-axis motors from the machine, stand them on end, put a piece of tape on each at the same angle and try a small program. Just watch to see if they are staying in synch. If they do, then you can start to look elsewhere.
I suspect it is, in fact, a connection. A single wire on the motor that stalls is either fatigued inside the cable, or broken inside a connector. There's no particularly easy way to diagnose that though (sometimes wiggling the connections or holding the wire at just the right angle will do it, but it's not an exact science), best to just replace the entire signal chain and see if the issue persists. Re-tramming your frame and tightening up the wheels is probably a good idea anyway, it should really be done once a month under heavy usage, probably once every six months using it weekly. Bolted connectors and friction don't hold in place forever under load and vibration; machine tools aren't a set-and-forget kind of appliance. The third thing that's caused me loss of sync and/or vibration is a) running two motors from one driver and/or b) too low a current setting on the driver. Since it's been working fine, I'd just check to make sure the DIP switch hasn't been knocked by anything. But every single time I've noticeably lost sync on a dual-Y, it's been either a) single broken connection in one phase, or b) mismatched motors on a single driver.
well I figured it out late last night. It was a misaligned anti-backlash on the left side. Once I figured out I did another hour of testing and could not get it to fail! I ran it all morning today and worked like a champ. Thanks
