[Daniel Boone]

I recentely purchased a fadal 3016 and it has quite a bit of backlash in the ballscrews, when I put an indicatior on the end of screw and jog I get about
.018 in both directions X and Y, The ballscrews themselves seem to be in good shape, how can the thrust be adjusted out.

Any help would be appreciated

[Neal]

Daniel--
If you have that much play, you have big issues. First make sure you are testing correctly. For the X axis with the mag base on the table place the indicator on the end of the ballscrew. do a push pull test in the X axis and read the B/L. This is checking the ballscrew to the ballnut. Now place the mag base on the saddle and indicator on the end of the baLLscrew. You are now testing the thrust bearing slop.
Repeat simalrly for the Y axis.

Also, verify that there is no rotation slop in the coupler.

Neal

[alex gitzel]

sounds like the thrust bearings are shot,if there are dowfrost lines going to the bearing blocks they are metric pitch screws and the ones without lines are inch pitch.you will need to know to order the bearings and seals.the bearings are easy to replace all you need is a arbor press.if the screws are moving in and out more than .002 replace the bearings.if you decide to do the repair yourself post or pm and i will give detailed instuctions.if the slop is not as much as you thought you can adjust the backlash.go to enter next command enter BL this bring up the backlash table.test backlash in jog at the center of the travel with an indicator one click each way and adjust the value.to adjust go to BL and for example x axis is adjusted by typing BL,1,(value here) the ends of the travel are done an inch from the end and the value is typed in the bl line seperated by comas.to do y axis type BL,2,(value) and z is BL,3,(value).the manuals can be downloaded from fadalcnc.com for free.

[Daniel Boone]

Well you both were correct the coolant lines that went into the thrust bearings leaked water into bearing and took them out in a big way, replaced both axis bearings and adjusted backlash, back in business, Thanks for all your help.

[Neal]

Daniel--
Make sure that the DOWFROST is not leaking or you will knock the new bearings out quickly!!

Neal

[DareBee]

There are a bunch of us here that bypass the ballscrew cooling to eliminate that issue.
This works well unless you run the machine hard and a couple of shifts a day.
The cooling is a great idea but difficult to keep from leaking, especially in older machines.

[SBC Cycle]

Well you both were correct the coolant lines that went into the thrust bearings leaked water into bearing and took them out in a big way, replaced both axis bearings and adjusted backlash, back in business, Thanks for all your help.

Just did the same thing to two of my Fadals. The X axis on one machine and the Y on the other.

On one machine there was a small groove wore into the ballscrew so it will eventually fail again.