Ebay Chinese Routers (CNC3040) - anyone purchased one of these machines recently?

Well..its arrived! :) Our chinese 4030 cnc machine....no tracking number...no email communication...but delivered this morning. It was very well packaged and looked as if it needed to be! I assumed it started out box shaped but there were no edges visible on delivery! I rolled it from my front door thro to my kitchen where it will live for a while!

Everything survived intact, no damage and the spindle works fine, quieter than i thought it would be although it might sound a lot louder when actually milling some material. Now just need to cobble together a working pc with xp to run mach3.....to be continued!

If you are stuck for a PC I have just bought a job lot, all installed with XP, COA sticker and license, Mach 3 installed and tested [ no license - demo only ] and a few freebie programs like CAD and a DXF convertor

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Originally Posted by John S

If you are stuck for a PC I have just bought a job lot, all installed with XP, COA sticker and license, Mach 3 installed and tested [ no license - demo only ] and a few freebie programs like CAD and a DXF convertor

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I have lots of pc bits and pieces that we have accumulated through the years John, but if i cannot cobble one together then you might just have the answer :smile:

How much are you asking for one of those machines?

Mine has arrived too, all perfect, extremely well packaged. Tomorrow I'll try to install emc2 to check if it's working ok.

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Originally Posted by modcube

Mine has arrived too, all perfect, extremely well packaged. Tomorrow I'll try to install emc2 to check if it's working ok.

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The tracking number arrived in my email this morning...the machine was delivered yesterday lol

Not used it in anger yet...getting our heads round mach3 etc...should be able to give it a run tomorrow for real!

The spindle has dead, it started to smell really bad and after that (2h of non continuous use) it stopped working, one coil is burnt. Attachment 5352

Have you measured the resistance across the coil to confirm it is broken? If it is, then you might be lucky enough to find the break and solder in a bit of new wire. However that is probably hoping too much as the wire has enamel on it to stop it shorting to the other strands next to it, and if it got hot enough to brake, then the enamel around that wire and others near it will also be melted. You will have a number of shorted turns. Anyway you might manage a repair but most likely to need a replacement.

... if you do, can I have the broken motor?

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Originally Posted by Tenson

Have you measured the resistance across the coil to confirm it is broken? If it is, then you might be lucky enough to find the break and solder in a bit of new wire. However that is probably hoping too much as the wire has enamel on it to stop it shorting to the other strands next to it, and if it got hot enough to brake, then the enamel around that wire and others near it will also be melted. You will have a number of shorted turns. Anyway you might manage a repair but most likely to need a replacement.

... if you do, can I have the broken motor?

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Yes, I measured the resistance to confirm it's broken. As you mentioned it seems it has melted so it can be very difficult to fix. I will contact the eBay seller (love-happyshopping) and I'll try to get a new one (the product page says: "1 years free warranty"). I'll keep you posted.

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Originally Posted by modcube

The spindle has dead, it started to smell really bad and after that (2h of non continuous use) it stopped working, one coil is burnt. Attachment 5352

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Do you think it was a "refurbished" unit? Is there any sign of wear around the area where the brushes run?

Did the spindle jam on a cut?

That's a bummer but at least it will give us an insight into how good the warranty / claim setup is from the Portsmouth guys if you can keep us in the loop ?

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Originally Posted by camhguh

Do you think it was a "refurbished" unit? Is there any sign of wear around the area where the brushes run?

Did the spindle jam on a cut?

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My one said 'used motor' or something to that effect. It seems good in my case though. I'm guessing they will replace without issue.

Also it occurs to me that the max operating voltage for these motors is 154V which is 110V (US mains) rectified to DC. I had been wondering why the required volage was so high when many powerful DC motors are more like 35-50V.

Think thats where some of the saving is, spindle on mine have had the brushes previously changed with too big a screwdriver.

Spindle driver circuit is on the very basic side, it will allow the motor to stall at low revs and has no back emf protection at all.

Hope your vendor is responsive, please do keep everyone informed.

Cheers
Adam

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Originally Posted by Musht

Think thats where some of the saving is, spindle on mine have had the brushes previously changed with too big a screwdriver.

Spindle driver circuit is on the very basic side, it will allow the motor to stall at low revs and has no back emf protection at all.

Hope your vendor is responsive, please do keep everyone informed.

Cheers
Adam

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Care to share a picture of your spindle drive circuit? :)

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Originally Posted by Tenson

Care to share a picture of your spindle drive circuit? :)

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will get some lid off shots tomorrow :-)

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Originally Posted by camhguh

Do you think it was a "refurbished" unit? Is there any sign of wear around the area where the brushes run?

Did the spindle jam on a cut?

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Maybe, the brushes are at half use (compared to the replacement ones), and as I said I've only used it 2 hours. The spindle stopped on a cut (it's not jammed, I can spin it manually).

This is the answer I've got from the eBay seller:

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dear friend
if the spindle has problem ,we will exchange a spindle to you ,we pay the shipping cost
friend ,th e picturer you sent us can not be opened
could youplease resend it to us again?
(You can upload the picture video to web www.photobucket.com then give us the video link or you can send it to [email protected] ), and describe the problem, then we will see the problem and know how to resolve it. The more detail that you show the problem, the more quickly we can resolve this problem for you.

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He seems quite responsible.

Lid off pics, Yoo CNC controller:


spindle control;
Device numbers been scrubbed off the two power trannys, it does the job of controlling speed but a decent D.C. drive or change to VFD spindle somewhere down the road.

Paralell in breakout, now know why E-Stop does nowt, its physically connected to the probe pins ;-)
Being brought up on usenet not hugely fond of v-bulletin ,seem to jump from needing approval to not, to posts awaiting approval, dunno about spam situation but it don`t encourage new posters...

Cheers
Adam
Attachment 5355Attachment 5356Attachment 5357

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Originally Posted by chip

i would still open an ebay/paypal case asap then explain you had to do it as a formality..then keep an eye on case expiry dates.

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I'll wait a little longer to open a case, the seller has sent me this e-mail:

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dear friend
i have hand your pictures and your problem to the factory ,once we get reply from them ,we will reply you immediately

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Well...guess what...we have a problem...after around four or five hours intermittent use the z axis is misbehaving....when i jog down it goes up and when i jog up it goes down...hehe not... bloody Chinese gremlins!!!

The odd thing is that we can move the gantry to a certain position on the bed and it works fine but within a limited area. Because we need the parts urgently we are running it for the moment in this manner but its a pita!

I think because it works ok in one area of the machine that the problem is most likely to be with the wiring and not the driver boards...at least im hoping so..because any issue with the wiring would be a lot easier to resolve!

Forgot to mention that we are using Mach3

Anyone come across a similar problem?

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Originally Posted by camhguh

Well...guess what...we have a problem...after around four or five hours intermittent use the z axis is misbehaving....when i jog down it goes up and when i jog up it goes down...hehe not... bloody Chinese gremlins!!!

The odd thing is that we can move the gantry to a certain position on the bed and it works fine but within a limited area. Because we need the parts urgently we are running it for the moment in this manner but its a pita!

I think because it works ok in one area of the machine that the problem is most likely to be with the wiring and not the driver boards...at least im hoping so..because any issue with the wiring would be a lot easier to resolve!

Forgot to mention that we are using Mach3

Anyone come across a similar problem?

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This is definitely a problem with the wire, I've found some people that had this problem too.

Unless its`s possible to set some sort of safe area that reverses Z-axis in mach3?

Wiring does sound like the suspect, as price of copper has increased so has the thickness of the insualtion and thinness of conductor on some Chinese gear, looks like the right wire until strip it open.

Straightforward to test with multimeter between connectors of controller and stepper connector, give everything a good waggle and roll the axis by hand, look for open and short between wires.

let us know how you get on.

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Originally Posted by camhguh

i jog down it goes up and when i jog up it goes down

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If that's the only problem it implies the direction setting for Z in mach 3 is set the wrong way. Could try going to "Config"->"Ports & Pins"->"Motor Outputs" then changing "Dir LowActive" on the line for Z. However if it's working fine in another place that's not going to help you. The only things that can change the motor direction is the state of the direction pin on the stepper driver, or changing the polarity of either phase. The latter surely cannot happen, so I'd put a voltmeter on the Z-axis driver direction pin and see if it looks right.

Whereabouts are you in Nottingham? I'm at University of Nottingham so if you don't get it sorted today I'm happy to come and have a look as it shouldn't be far?

second coffee of day ;-) , dodgy stepper 101, change the connectors over on to another axis, see if problem follows driver or motor.

there is a way to reverse the motors in Mach without messing with pins and stuff. I have done it on my machine for both Axis.

it's in some sort of options and there is a table and one of the options in the table is Reverse and you can just change it from a cross to the Tick and it will be sorted.

I will find out for you later.

Thanks for your thoughts on the problem folks, much appreciated!

Will give some of those ideas a try later on when were finished milling out our latest batch of bits and pieces! Were somewhat constrained noisewise because of neighbours so have to be prudent.

The reversed direction was a joke right? I think it confused a few.

Anyway it does sound like wire, as said just move it to a malfunctioning position and test the continuity with a multi-meter. At the motor end you probably don't have access to the bare wire so you could push a pin through the wire insulation into the core and then you can test from that.

To be honest though, wire doesn't tend to break, the connection points do, at the plug and at the motor. You might end up needing to open the motor case to check where the wire joins.

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Originally Posted by Tenson

The reversed direction was a joke right? I think it confused a few.

Anyway it does sound like wire, as said just move it to a malfunctioning position and test the continuity with a multi-meter. At the motor end you probably don't have access to the bare wire so you could push a pin through the wire insulation into the core and then you can test from that.

To be honest though, wire doesn't tend to break, the connection points do, at the plug and at the motor. You might end up needing to open the motor case to check where the wire joins.

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No joke sadly, thats what it does. Starts out on z+ for instance then reverses to z- or other way round.

If i jog the gantry around i can feel that there is little power on the zaxis motor because i can move it manually until it gets to a position on the bed where power has obviously been restored, then it feels similar to the x y motors. Guessing that its a cable/connector problem of some sort. On closer inspection the cables do not look new and are probably reused.

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Originally Posted by camhguh

Well...guess what...we have a problem...after around four or five hours intermittent use the z axis is misbehaving....when i jog down it goes up and when i jog up it goes down...hehe not... bloody Chinese gremlins!!!

The odd thing is that we can move the gantry to a certain position on the bed and it works fine but within a limited area. Because we need the parts urgently we are running it for the moment in this manner but its a pita!

I think because it works ok in one area of the machine that the problem is most likely to be with the wiring and not the driver boards...at least im hoping so..because any issue with the wiring would be a lot easier to resolve!

Forgot to mention that we are using Mach3

Anyone come across a similar problem?

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Could be a dodgy keyboard and it's just coinsidense it happens to be working in one spot to the other. If you have another KB it's Certainly worth eliminating for what it takes.!!

Good point, mine didn't work right with the spindle running as it caused EMI. Have you been trying this with the spindle off?

Thanks for the input guys! Yes i have tried it with the spindle not running, didnt make any difference! As soon as its finished milling the current bits and pieces then will have a look to see if i can pin it down.

Thanks for the link Modcube...looks like its a known problem with these machines?....hope this one's the same...easy fix!

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Originally Posted by camhguh

Thanks for the input guys! Yes i have tried it with the spindle not running, didnt make any difference! As soon as its finished milling the current bits and pieces then will have a look to see if i can pin it down.

Thanks for the link Modcube...looks like its a known problem with these machines?....hope this one's the same...easy fix!

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OK..had a chance to investigate further but not resolved yet....been able to confirm that its a cable problem but unable to track down where exactly. Have to try and keep it going for the moment because we need the parts lol.

Checked out the control box internal wiring which appeared ok...no loose wiring etc and everything solidly bolted down.

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Originally Posted by Jonathan

If that's the only problem it implies the direction setting for Z in mach 3 is set the wrong way. Could try going to "Config"->"Ports & Pins"->"Motor Outputs" then changing "Dir LowActive" on the line for Z. However if it's working fine in another place that's not going to help you. The only things that can change the motor direction is the state of the direction pin on the stepper driver, or changing the polarity of either phase. The latter surely cannot happen, so I'd put a voltmeter on the Z-axis driver direction pin and see if it looks right.

Whereabouts are you in Nottingham? I'm at University of Nottingham so if you don't get it sorted today I'm happy to come and have a look as it shouldn't be far?

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Sorry i missed your offer to come and sort us out Jonathan, lol, much appreciated mate!

At the moment we are able to run ok on approx 50% of the bed without problems which enables us to continue and produce parts (for the moment anyway!)

In the meantime I will make up a new cable if i can work out what the connectors are!

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Originally Posted by camhguh

Sorry i missed your offer to come and sort us out Jonathan, lol, much appreciated mate!

At the moment we are able to run ok on approx 50% of the bed without problems which enables us to continue and produce parts (for the moment anyway!)

In the meantime I will make up a new cable if i can work out what the connectors are!

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Try the yellow cable that connects to the Z axis connector on the parellel board. I had a similar fault and it turned out to be loose in the socket.

Phil

Thanks for the suggestion Phil!

I made up a new cable this evening and although i havnt tested it in anger yet, the z axis does seem to work ok while moving the gantry back and forth.

Hopefully problem solved!!

Bugger me my machine went and did this yesterday.!! . . . I've just transfered all my control box into a new larger box. . . . I knew straight away what it was and to be honest I'm embaressed that I didn't think about it in your case.:redface:

It's one of the Dir pin wires thats either come out at drive or connection/wire come lose in motor. To be honest I didn't expect it to behave how it did.? I expected it would only move in one direction but it infact it was moving in one direction then changed direction randomly.!!

LOL , its catching, must be a virus going round!

Anyways were back up and running ok after replacing the cable...must have been a spot somewhere along the length of the cable where there was a breakage but making contact depending on where the gantry was positioned.

Thanks once again for all your input its been very helpful and much appreciated as usual!

Ho Hum...now what?...the spindle motor brushes have worn out!! After approx 6hrs intermittent running!!

Plus the remains of one have dropped inside the motor..lol..

So the saga continues....

Should still be under warrenty shouldn't it.?? . . Or is that has much use as the spindle.!!

Got a single speed Kress here if you are stuck and a mounting.

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Originally Posted by John S

Got a single speed Kress here if you are stuck and a mounting.

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Thanks for the offer John, not had a chance to take this piece of crap apart yet to see if its recoverable...will do so tomorrow and decide what's best way forward.

Edit: Stripped it down and cleaned out gunge and brush/spring remmants etc.
Bottom bearing dosnt feel right but will run it later to test.

Ran it but its eating the brushes and sounds terrible...probaly bearing problems..