[sliney200]

Hi all-- Hoping I could get some help with my Prolight 2000.
A little history: I've worked on these back in mid 90s up to present and I think they are great machines. I have two in my possession. One is working flawlessly which is the same exact machine I have been using since it was purchased in 94. The other one was bought on eBay but they could not power it up to find out if it worked. Well as it turns out it didn't. The Y motor shaft was broken. So began my quest to get this machine running again.
I bought a replacement motor and installed it. I was getting communication issues and I kind of shelved the project-- that was 2005. So now I am back at it largely because I want to sell it. I have connected it to the PC that my well running Prolight 2000 is connected to and it runs really well... for about 10-15 minutes. Then at that point the Y axis develops this thumping noise that escalates louder and louder as it run a program. I am running full CNC surface interpolation... So around line 4500 to 5000 is when the thumping starts... If you look at the ball screw you can see that it stops for a millisecond then starts back up and that seems to be what is making the noise. Then at some point the machine errors out and says positioning error. If at that moment I try to move it back to 0,0,0, the thumping will continue... But if I wait 10 minutes and move it back to 0,0,0 there is no thumping. Smooth as silk. So what could it be??

Also: I have been around and around with Intelitek about the spindle motor-- I need brushes. It is apparently an earlier version of a Baldor motor that they do not have any detailed info on...The brushes measure .75 X .25 X .56 (probably not the new length since this is the wear side). It has the number 124 on one side of it. There is no spring-- only wire leaving the brush. Does anybody have the specs on the earlier version of motor from 94 that I am in need of? Baldor said they need it in order to find brushes for it... I don’t know if I can remove the motor from the black housing it is currently in...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[steryd]

Ad. Brushes: in some other topic someone advised to contact Helwig Carbon. They probably will make brushes by dimensions. If You like to do it yourself just find some bigger brushes (made for truck starter motor or old vacuum cleaner or DC generator) and shape it with file or sand paper and it should work.

Ad. Y axis vibes: check the electronics. It appears that there may be some problem on the control board. As far as i remember the axes motors are driven directly by SM integrated controllers fixed to big radiator. maybe they need new thermo paste, or even resoldering. Worst case is some of the tracks on the printed board is (are) cut a little and gap appears after heating a little. Finding that would require a lot of patience.

[machinehop5]

...dirty DC servo Tachometer can cause problems sometimes

[sliney200]

OK, where is that located??

[sliney200]

Brushes: Baldor said if they could just get the spindle motor info they should be able to find me the brush. I was just hoping someone on here had that info.. But yes, that is pretty much what intelitek told me. Pretty much a punt by them.

Y axis vibes: I was hoping it would be easy... something like a thrust bearing. I dont really have teh time to chase down stuff like that. Maybe I just sell as is. I thank you for your response.