Hello All,
As you may know I've purchased a Jinan QuickCNC machine with the following dimensions, 1500x4000x400 with a Syntec Controller. The machine was idle till very recently (all kinds of issues with getting power). During this period, I did many small mods on the machine, like a dust collection system and currently am building a new dust shoe. I still have issues with the vacuum table sucking the MDF effectively. The suction is very weak to say the least.
Then I purchased VisualMillPro. Initially, I wrote the post, but couldn't get it to work around radii and canned cycles, my post at high speed made the machine vibrate a bit. Folks at visual mill were very nice to write a post for the controller and now I've been sort of lucky with the machine and did manage to do some real work. The machine is networked and I can currently send the nc files from my computer directly to the machine.
Three days back I loaded MDF blanks on the machine for machining. I wanted to first mill the X-Y reference line on the blanks, before milling the shape. The X-Y reference line was milled using profiling and went of well. After profiling, I uploaded the main file to mill the blank. Then I set the X-Y based on the reference line that was just profiled. After latching the coordinates, I wanted to move the head to its home position. I pressed home and the X, Y and Z keys to home. The head went up to Z and locked in there. There was no budging it from its top position. Immediately thereafter, I got an error "Z Axis Negative Limit exceeded." This is strange since in the top most position the Z axis is in its positive limit. Therefore, I thought that perhaps the rocker limit switch has broken.
After writing to and speaking with Taney, I discovered that the only way to lower the head was to rotate the motor with the machine switched off. But it appears that the Z axis servo has a brake and it did not rotate, I tried a bit of force but it was locked tight. So I undid the tensioning screws and got the head to come down, after which I tensioned the belt and tightened the screws again.
Now the head can be moved up and down, but when I move it till the point that it touches the roller limit switch, nothing happens (no error on the screen to have moved above the limit).
I'd like to know if anyone has experienced a similar thing, and how did you see if the limit switch worked or what is the process of diagnosing the various limit switches and cable connections in a Syntec controller (940M) based machine. I'd be happy to change the switch but want to be sure if that is what is broken or if there's something else that is giving the trouble.
Thanks a lot,
N