[forhire]

I just rebuilt my Y-axis with a new shaft, bearings, and pinion gear. My Y-axis backlash is now minimal and my circles are round again. Because the backlash was so bad previously I want to clear any stored backlash compensation values and re-calibrate. I've look through my parameter list but I'm just not finding it. Does Multicam support backlash compensation? If so, where is it set?

[forhire]

I reached out to my local vendor this morning. This is the answer. Now I need to figure out how to tune the accel/decel.

There is no backlash compensation, all we can do is adjust accel/decel

Those are params 502/xaxis and 512/yaxis

[Jim Dawson]

The real question is: Does it need to be adjusted? Is the machine running OK? If so, I would say nothing needs to be done.

[forhire]

The machine is running fine. The pinion was rotating on the shaft due to roll pin wear. After remaking the shaft and replacing the pinion the backlash is limited to the minimum required. I haven't put a lot of time on the machine since I swapped out the parts yesterday. I did about 120 16mm holes today. They definitely looked a LOT more round but in gauging them there is some variation.

[peteeng]

Hi all- A general question about backlash compensation in the controller. Does it compensate along the whole path? or does it just apply it at ends of paths? Peter

[forhire]

Hi all- A general question about backlash compensation in the controller. Does it compensate along the whole path? or does it just apply it at ends of paths? Peter

It compensates for the backlash on the change of direction by adding the backlash amount. It's normally set as a parameter on the machine tool. I'm a bit surprised Multicam doesn't support the feature. It's possible they handle it some other way.

Because my backlash was so high, I really just wanted to make sure nobody had set crazy values previously.

Now that I have the mechanical backlash under control I can begin exploring my options. It's possible some of my variation today was a result of the material.

[MCPservice]

There isn't any compensation for backlash because you can only turn out so much, eventually there is no number you could put in the controller to comp out.

On a Multicam machine you more then likely still have a mechanical issue in either:

Gear box
Drive Gear

If my be as simple as you aren't engaged completely into the rack...or the rack needs replacement