Please help ! Why does one end drop

LowRider CNC Troubleshooting
1

I have been having an issue with one side dropping during a project. It was usually the right hand side of your facing the machine, but today it happened to the left side I am not sure what to do about this. And somehow the x axis gets pushed out past the side of the wood at about the same time. I know my board has had a hard life but it has been working fine. I was also wondering how long can I expect the stepper motor to last could they be getting weak. I have had it about a year and so milti hour long cuts on it daily. I am looking forward to everyone’s thoughts and help on this. Here is a couple pictures of what it did this last time. Thank you in advance for your help. Tom

20210622_183748
20210622_1837482016×2254 1.11 MB

20210622_183814
20210622_1838143765×1548 1.29 MB

20210622_183849
20210622_1838493584×1261 1.05 MB

2

If it’s been working, there are a few possibilities.

  1. Grub screws loose. These are letting the Z screws turn independently of the motor.

  2. Motor wires damaged, or loose Dupont connectors. Something letting the circuit open so no holding torque on the motors.

  3. overheating stepper drivers. These will turn off for several seconds if overheated, letting the motors do whatever they want.

It is almost certainly not the motors. These pretty much never wear out, and if they do fail, it’s going.to be complete.

Given that it is multiple motors thst seem to be failing, overheat would be my suspicion. Check that heat sinks are not clogged and any fans are ok. Clean stuff out. While you’re at it, check grub screws and wiring, just because.

2 Likes
3

I’ll echo that one. It bit me hard once. I spent so much time trying to track down a problem with the hardware, with the code, with voltage to the motors… and then I finally thought to look at the connectors on the board. :roll_eyes:

5

I had issues with connectors to my Rambo board, 90% of my problems were those damn things. My motors would stutter back and forth when there was an issue with one. This was the reason I switched to skr pro.

I also started ditching DuPont connectors for gx16, I’ve never had any issues from those since.

I had similar behavior from my z and it was one of the grub screws on the coupler. I would check those first since it’s easy to do.

And what the hell happened to the motor connector on the far right?