My Z-Axis is not reliable.
I have sent Geckos back twice for repair, replaced the servo motor ($450), replaced the inverter, cleaned the optical position reader, replaced most all the wiring in the power box, removed any extra electronics like Cambell isolator boards, i have tried to tune the Gekkos in every concievable setting from limit 1/3-full, from damp and gain with large seperation, small seperation, both low, both mid, 7/8 position you name it.
Still the Z-Axis sometimes just stops, Mach 3 continues to show z moving but it is not. Some times the z servo just starts again, sometimes I have to turn the limit up and down, sometimes I have to press on the wires that go to the gecko, also resetting Mach, or turning off and on the power to the Drives will restart the z axis.
There is continuity in my wiring, this is really perplexing. Has anyone had one of thier servos just stop for no reason?
Should also mention it is much worse when the mill is cold, just turning it on in the morning.
At this point I am debating replacing the Gecko drive or and the servo again!! possibly these things may have been damaged yet again even though they are new. I hear it only takes a couple secconds to burn the servo motor up, while tuning the Gekko I had some problems where the z-axis crashed into the part.
Today. I had the Z servo about 17 minutes into an operation retract for no reason, I had to competly re-tune the Gecko all over again. It suddenly was faulting all over the place.
I ran the program again, it retracted again but then dove into the part.
Each new day I have re-tune the Z-Servo Gecko to get it right again. the Gecko seems to lose its settings!
The PC I am using is a pentium 3.4 with plenty of ram, nice robust Intel 875PBZ motherboard, SIGII pci parrell card, and no other programs running. Purpose built for this job. Also the parrell cable stretches to the power box about 15'.
what gives?