There has been some track jumping and the machine will be unusable until tonight at the earliest.
I will be looking at the ShopBot tonight with persons eminently qualified to do so.
Please do not use or disturb the ShopBot so we can get an accurate appraisal of just what condition it was in at the point of failure.
Thank you,
Will update on this thread.
Edit: ShopBot is back up.
Seems that it was just one of those fluke happenings.
Happy routing makers!
Sometimes tools fail. They’re designed to fail in ways that limit destruction to people, but that can sometimes compromise our work. The shopbot is a really impressive machine, but even this tool can “blow a tire”.
The most recent issue happened as a result of the gandry getting derailed. This can happen from the tension on the stepper motors loosening over time, an encounter with a foreign object on the tracks or rack, or even from just a real solid bump. It once even happened to me when i had a piece not secured very well; it came loose and bumped the piece into another stop block. That obstruction was enough to muscle the machine off its tracks and ruin my project.
Fortunately, this has only happened with our machine 3 total times. But if it happens, it’s an easy fix. Loosen the turnbuckles on the stepper motors and give the gandry a good nudge back on track. Then retighten the turnbuckles.
You can also help prevent a derailment by scanning for obstructions and limiting the feedrate to nothing higher than 250. Also limit your depth per pass to no more than the diameter of the bit. You can go less, but never more.
Finally, if a project gets SUPER messed up, reach out to those who have used the shopbot a lot and you might get some creative ideas on how to salvage some of your hard work.
Has the gantry been re-squared since it was moved?
Glad to hear it’s nothing major and good to know for future use, thanks for sharing.
It has not been. @doug.wilson can we, or any qualified maker(s) includingyou @CWalker, get together to do so? I am remiss in not getting intimately acquainted with the ShopBot yet and need to learn it from the bottom up. Squaring the gantry is definitely a skill I need.
Honestly, it never even occurred to me to do that. The gantry is robust enough that when it was scared (not too long ago) I imagine it would still be square. But I could be wrong. It’s worth at least checking for square right now, just to see how off it might be.
Did you do something to frighten it?
