[azam1959]

based on your cutting examples. maybe they were never tight to begin with.
locktite or no locktite, i doubt it just came loose from you limited use of it.

there are 4 different points of failure here. you have the screws holding the spindle to the aluminium mount. you have the screws holding that mount to the Z saddle. then theres the screws holding the z saddle to the ball nut and riser blocks. and finally the screws holding the riser blocks to the linear guides. while at it, you should also tighten the screws holding the ball nut to its mount.

i dont have a guess as to which ones are loose, the pics dont really show it clear enough. so dont rush it. take it all apart, and put it back together in order.

This would be the default action from me. I am looking for any improvement on top of this to make sure that I am not in the same position few weeks from now.

As for screws not being tight to begin with, I sincerely hope you are right; as I mentioned before, this will be the best scenario (although hard to believe that I did not tighten the screws during z axis assembly).

Thanks for the help my friend and hope you also saw the type of cut and realize that side cut did create tremendous amount of forces on z axis joints. Not trying to fail the machine, I was hoping that this will be the end of machine building and start of modeling ... oh well.

[ihavenofish]

i will put this out for discussion,, i have always used blue locktite as i keep in mind how much i change the heads yet to use red is far more solid and can require heat to remove

fish which do you prefer?

Threadlockers from Loctite Products | Threadlocking / Mechanical Gasketing | Loctite Adhesives

black. nothing comes apart. :P

actually, in my experience with the raptor, if everything was assembled correctly, nothing ever came loose. i dont think there was loctite anywhere on that machine.

not saying people should follow that as advise though, haha.

[azam1959]

James,

From my post, I guess it is easy to guess that I am questioning the design. Nothing I can do here about the design but I will do whatever I can to make these screws as tight as possible.

Your message is not very clear ... I should go and get the blue loctite? I will not mind to use the heat gun one in every few year to get access for greasing.

Please clarify.

Thanks for jumping in.

i will put this out for discussion,, i have always used blue locktite as i keep in mind how much i change the heads yet to use red is far more solid and can require heat to remove

fish which do you prefer?

Threadlockers from Loctite Products | Threadlocking / Mechanical Gasketing | Loctite Adhesives

[ihavenofish]

This would be the default action from me. I am looking for any improvement on top of this to make sure that I am not in the same position few weeks from now.

As for screws not being tight to begin with, I sincerely hope you are right; as I mentioned before, this will be the best scenario (although hard to believe that I did not tighten the screws during z axis assembly).

Thanks for the help my friend and hope you also saw the type of cut and realize that side cut did create tremendous amount of forces on z axis joints. Not trying to fail the machine, I was hoping that this will be the end of machine building and start of modeling ... oh well.

the amount of force to push a properly tightened saddle plate sideways is more than cutting through 1/2" steel on a 10hp mill could achieve, and more than the bearings in the ball screws and spindle are really designed to take. crashing the spindle into a block of steel at 1000ipm might knock it sideways, but it will also likely break other stuff while youre at it

even then, it would just slip, not come loose.

[azam1959]

the amount of force to push a properly tightened saddle plate sideways is more than cutting through 1/2" steel on a 10hp mill could achieve, and more than the bearings in the ball screws and spindle are really designed to take. crashing the spindle into a block of steel at 1000ipm might knock it sideways, but it will also likely break other stuff while youre at it

even then, it would just slip, not come loose.

this is not any hypothetical issue ... i am facing the reality. socket head screws George has provided has given a person like me the ability to tight the screws.

no hidden agenda here .... just trying to avoid the situation in the future. i actually looked for black loctite you mentioned and could not find it. please do realize that you are talking to a layman and keep the jokes on the side for few minutes.

what is the strongest locktite i should use for help?

[azam1959]

the amount of force to push a properly tightened saddle plate sideways is more than cutting through 1/2" steel on a 10hp mill could achieve, and more than the bearings in the ball screws and spindle are really designed to take. crashing the spindle into a block of steel at 1000ipm might knock it sideways, but it will also likely break other stuff while youre at it

even then, it would just slip, not come loose.

one thing more .... i will not get into technical details but your analysis does not look right .... although i never practiced it but one of my degree is in structural engineering. there is no support at the end of z axis and i will be surprise if it take much of side force to knock it down ... have you done any experiments to make the claims in your post?

[ihavenofish]

this is not any hypothetical issue ... i am facing the reality. socket head screws George has provided has given a person like me the ability to tight the screws.

no hidden agenda here .... just trying to avoid the situation in the future. i actually looked for black loctite you mentioned and could not find it. please do realize that you are talking to a layman and keep the jokes on the side for few minutes.

what is the strongest locktite i should use for help?

use the weakest loctite they make. screws come loose under certain vibration frequencies. the weakest loctite will prevent this. you dont want to actually glue the screw in.

my point was that if the screws are tightened (with our without loctite) the plates will never slip short of in a situation that will damage the machine (bad crash).

[ihavenofish]

... have you done any experiments to make the claims in your post?

you mean besides running dozens of guitars on my raptor, the 100+ other xzero customers never having an issue? the thousands of times ive clamped steel and aluminium work pieces to my mill with 2 small bolts and cut through it?

make a video showing the spindle shifting with hand pressure, ill be able to tell you whats loose.

[theremin]

black. nothing comes apart. :P

actually, in my experience with the raptor, if everything was assembled correctly, nothing ever came loose. i dont think there was loctite anywhere on that machine.

not saying people should follow that as advise though, haha.

I have ihavenofish's Raptor, as well as a newer, bigger one. I've run both pretty hard, and haven't had anything come loose on either one. The only issue I've hit with bolts has been getting a little over-zealous with torque and stripping the fine threads in the aluminum with the metric bolts. On those few occurances (which were my fault entirely), I redrilled and tapped for a larger, coarser SAE thread. Helicoil would have worked too. But nothing has come loose so far.

Dave

[theremin]

one thing more .... i will not get into technical details but your analysis does not look right .... although i never practiced it but one of my degree is in structural engineering. there is no support at the end of z axis and i will be surprise if it take much of side force to knock it down ... have you done any experiments to make the claims in your post?

There isn't any support on the ballscrew on the Z axis, but if all the bearing blocks are tight, the ball screw shouldn't have any measurable lateral force on it. The rails and linear bearings take all of that stress, and the rails are bolted securely to the axis back plate.

With loose bearing blocks, as seems to be the case on your machine right now, all of that changes. If the ballscrew were supported at both ends, that might reduce the play that you are seeing, but it wouldn't be doing the ballscrew any good having that unplanned for lateral force acting on it.

Dave

[azam1959]

you mean besides running dozens of guitars on my raptor, the 100+ other xzero customers never having an issue? the thousands of times ive clamped steel and aluminium work pieces to my mill with 2 small bolts and cut through it?

make a video showing the spindle shifting with hand pressure, ill be able to tell you whats loose.

sorry i should not have posted that message. been reading your posts for quite some time and i should not question you without proper background.
regards,

[azam1959]

Excellent. This is what I wanted to hear Dave. I will work with my slow pace ... will just unassailable the z axis, use the red loctite which I already have and reassemble and hope this the last of z axis issue I will have.

thanks again for all the input ...

There isn't any support on the ballscrew on the Z axis, but if all the bearing blocks are tight, the ball screw shouldn't have any measurable lateral force on it. The rails and linear bearings take all of that stress, and the rails are bolted securely to the axis back plate.

With loose bearing blocks, as seems to be the case on your machine right now, all of that changes. If the ballscrew were supported at both ends, that might reduce the play that you are seeing, but it wouldn't be doing the ballscrew any good having that unplanned for lateral force acting on it.

Dave

[gio666]

First time out of all the Square railed Z axis that someone ever said moving from cutting, spindle would be more than finished before it would move a z axis that is tighten properly. A round rails Z axis that people put same spindle on have no problem , SQ rail z is maybe 20 times stronger. You will get no support from ballscrew, If done properly you will have no problem at all. There is about 15 2.7hp spindles on same z axis on Raptor machines alone

[azam1959]

i got help and issue is fixed; took about an hour with the help. had to go all the way back to y plate. spindle may not be 100 percent perpendicular to table surface but much better then before. beside the issue of screw loosening, i never checked z axis being perpendicular to table surface during assembly time and hope this message will help somebody in future. not sure how visible it would be but first picture is supposed to show that y axis plate (or whatever it is called, one which is on top of y axis bearing) is not straight and next two picture shows the situation after issue is supposedly be fixed .... i did not have to touch spindle back plate, i tighten those screws with loctite few weeks ago and they were good. i hope issue is just my initial sloppy assembly job and now i can go back to modeling working instead of finding more issue, this was the second time z axis got loose.

thanks for all the help.

Excellent. This is what I wanted to hear Dave. I will work with my slow pace ... will just unassailable the z axis, use the red loctite which I already have and reassemble and hope this the last of z axis issue I will have.

thanks again for all the input ...

[azam1959]

First time out of all the Square railed Z axis that someone ever said moving from cutting, spindle would be more than finished before it would move a z axis that is tighten properly. A round rails Z axis that people put same spindle on have no problem , SQ rail z is maybe 20 times stronger. You will get no support from ballscrew, If done properly you will have no problem at all. There is about 15 2.7hp spindles on same z axis on Raptor machines alone

George, i want you to be right here. i rather be making models instead of fixing the machine. i tighten the screws the best i can and will take this documented incident as result of my initial sloppy assembly. if z axis issue happen third time, then perhaps we will need to spend some time to get to the bottom line. let move along for now.
regards,

[gio666]

Even if spindle is out , it should not move even if mounted sideways, can you send video of bearing moving and ill tell which has to be fix? The spacers can be tighten a bit more than mounting plates as they go into steel blocks

[azam1959]

Even if spindle is out , it should not move even if mounted sideways, can you send video of bearing moving ?

George, it did not move sideways ... my initial assembly was wrong. we talked about my spindle was not perpendicular to the table top and this is one of the reason. other reason was z blocks were also little off. this has nothing to do with the problem of loose screws, since i have to open the z axis, i fixed my initial screw up as well. i think only place where i sensed some loose screws were the plate immediately on top of z blocks.

[gio666]

I just would like to see so i know you have it fixed right, because in post you said bearing was moving itself, that would have nothing to do with Z axis to spindle mount. Talk about redesigning it i would like to see what you mean

[azam1959]

I just would like to see so i know you have it fixed right, because in post you said bearing was moving itself, that would have nothing to do with Z axis to spindle mount. Talk about redesigning it i would like to see what you mean

George,
i wrote a detail message, not sure what happened ...

bottom line--i do not have any video to share but will keep this request in mind for any future issues. i have tighten the screws and hoping that it will fix the problem for now (i hope). i have not even started and just made few parts so far to have a feel for the machine and z axis got loose twice and I am little worried. If this issue happen again, I will make the video will wait for you to do the analysis before I move forward with the fix. is there anything else i can do to help you analyze the issue?

thanks for the message. nice to know that i can continue to rely on you next time i get stuck.

[azam1959]

just want to close the loop here. waited about 24 hours to make another cut and I do not see any issue with the z axis at all. finish is pretty good with the end mill and i can not wait to see ball nose finish.



1/4 inch onsrud end mill keep going and going and going ... cut is still clean, no burn mark and tool is not hot.

George,
Want to say THANK YOU. I will consider our transaction complete now. I herd your other customers saying that once machine start working they forget the agony of waiting and now I understand what they meant. I promised the video yesterday and here is the link, but I will be surprised if this video reveal any insight.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPj3JcaKYgk]Second test - YouTube[/ame]

will be out for few weeks (another fusion) but hope xzero users will keep using this thread to share ideas and output from their machines.

Regards,

George,
i wrote a detail message, not sure what happened ...

bottom line--i do not have any video to share but will keep this request in mind for any future issues. i have tighten the screws and hoping that it will fix the problem for now (i hope). i have not even started and just made few parts so far to have a feel for the machine and z axis got loose twice and I am little worried. If this issue happen again, I will make the video will wait for you to do the analysis before I move forward with the fix. is there anything else i can do to help you analyze the issue?

thanks for the message. nice to know that i can continue to rely on you next time i get stuck.