[jbaz]

I have Kitamura MyCenter 1. I have dealt with stuck limit switches (the camed plunger on the exterior of the switch housing) before but never like this. In the past a little wd-40 has loosened up goobered up switches and got them moving freely. I had something different happen today. I was moving the X all the way in one direction and it moved further than it normally would before the soft over travel kicked in, where it throws an alarm and you can only move it in the opposite direction until it is off the switch and then you can reset the alarm. It went further than normal and triggered the hard limit switch, where it activates the e-stop and you have to use the LS Remove switch to override and back it off.

I did that, and backed it off, but when I released the switch I couldn't cycle the e-stop, it kept acting like the hard over travel was hit. I figured I had a stuck switch. Even that was kind of baffling though because it must be the hard limit switch that was stuck but I don't know why the soft limit didn't trigger first regardless???

Neither here nor there for the moment though because when I removed the switch assembly from the machine the upper switch (cammed plunger) was totally seized up. It was ever so slightly depressed but I could not even depress it by hand. I put wd-40 on it, tapped around it, everything you would normally think to do and wouldn't budge. I finally decided to gently tap on it with a hammer and did move in a bit but definitely seized up.

I took the assembly apart and the interior plunger (that contacts the mechanical electrical switch) moves freely but doesn't appear to be directly connected to the exterior metal cam plunger and there is a spring between them. I see no way to actually disassemble the plungers at all. It almost looks like they are pressed into the housing for a one way install, meaning you can't remove it, almost like it cannot be serviced and must be replaced.

The rub is I can't even find a place to get a replacement switch after a little hunting online. I'm hoping someone has been down this road and knows how to service a stuck switch. My best guess is since I basically never hit my hard limits all that time never being worked has seized it up but I can't believe it is seized the way it is... gummed up sure, but this thing was locked up big time.

I hoping someone here can come to the rescue on this one!

[jbaz]

Hey, just wanted to post a solution for others who have this problem. What I did was disassemble the whole assembly and took the mechanical switches out. I didn't think I could generate enough force from the inside plunger to knock the cam back out but after banging on it with a punch I did. I kept working it back and forth applying liquid wrench until it broke free of whatever goop that was binding it up tight as a drum started to dissolve. After several minutes of working it back and forth I eventually got it working great again.