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General Mach Discussion / New Chinese 3040, the good, the bad, and a few questions
« on: November 07, 2015, 10:06:07 AM »
Hi All
My new 3040 router has arrived and it was a day early. So now the "fun" begins.
The Good
It's bigger than I expected, I have been sort of guesstimating with a tape measure but now I can see it in the flesh it's quite big and heavy, the delivery driver was struggling trying to carry it.
It was quite well packed, enormous box with plenty of padding so it arrived safely even though it was dispatched from Germany, the box has a nice piece of thin ply in the bottom which will make a couple of sacrificial beds.
You do seem to get quite a lot of machine for your money if I can get it to work properly without going crazy in the process.
The Bad
As supplied the Electrics are potentially dangerous. The mains lead supplied has a standard 6A IEC (kettle type) plug at the machine end but at the other it's a different story It has a two pin foreign plug on it which has a facility for an earth pin but it's not fitted this then connects to a travel adaptor thing which again is three pole to connect to U.K. square pin sockets.
This means that the entire machine is running unearthed which, unless the controller is double insulated which I very strongly suspect it isn't, presents a serious safety problem.
Safety issues aside running the whole thing unearthed (apart from through the parallel port which will earth through the P.C.) will most likely cause all sorts of interference problems.
So unless anyone knows why I shouldn't I'm going to to replace this with a standard IEC to U.K. 3 pin lead, I have loads of them as most of my audio and computer gear uses them.
Before I actually apply power to it I am going to take the lid off the controller and give it a thorough "going over" just in case there are any other electrical "nasties" lurking in there.
The single sheet " instructions " are pretty much useless but I was expecting this and am prepared, The manual on the disk is a little better and I have a copy already which I am in the process of "translating" if anyone is interested.
The supplied software disk looks like someone's been playing Rugby with it but surprisingly it does seem to read O.K. It's got a fairly old copy of Mach 3 on it D1.90.038 just the demo I think
but I already have a newer version installed anyway and I can easily put up with the demo limits until I have things running.
I have not fitted the steppers yet but there seems to be a little backlash in the X axis. I haven't measured it but I reckon it's about 10 - 15 Thou'. It feels like the whole feed screw is moving slightly axially and the X axis screw feels a little rough.
And now for the questions newbie ones I know but this is my first CNC machine.
What is best to lubricate it with, how much and how often, does it even need lubricating.
Can I adjust the X axis axial play to take out the backlash, if so how.
Is there any reason not to change the dodgy power cable for an earthed one.
Regards Mark.
P.S. Getting quite excited now hoping to hear my first stepper motor "squeak" very soon.
My new 3040 router has arrived and it was a day early. So now the "fun" begins.
The Good
It's bigger than I expected, I have been sort of guesstimating with a tape measure but now I can see it in the flesh it's quite big and heavy, the delivery driver was struggling trying to carry it.
It was quite well packed, enormous box with plenty of padding so it arrived safely even though it was dispatched from Germany, the box has a nice piece of thin ply in the bottom which will make a couple of sacrificial beds.
You do seem to get quite a lot of machine for your money if I can get it to work properly without going crazy in the process.
The Bad
As supplied the Electrics are potentially dangerous. The mains lead supplied has a standard 6A IEC (kettle type) plug at the machine end but at the other it's a different story It has a two pin foreign plug on it which has a facility for an earth pin but it's not fitted this then connects to a travel adaptor thing which again is three pole to connect to U.K. square pin sockets.
This means that the entire machine is running unearthed which, unless the controller is double insulated which I very strongly suspect it isn't, presents a serious safety problem.
Safety issues aside running the whole thing unearthed (apart from through the parallel port which will earth through the P.C.) will most likely cause all sorts of interference problems.
So unless anyone knows why I shouldn't I'm going to to replace this with a standard IEC to U.K. 3 pin lead, I have loads of them as most of my audio and computer gear uses them.
Before I actually apply power to it I am going to take the lid off the controller and give it a thorough "going over" just in case there are any other electrical "nasties" lurking in there.
The single sheet " instructions " are pretty much useless but I was expecting this and am prepared, The manual on the disk is a little better and I have a copy already which I am in the process of "translating" if anyone is interested.
The supplied software disk looks like someone's been playing Rugby with it but surprisingly it does seem to read O.K. It's got a fairly old copy of Mach 3 on it D1.90.038 just the demo I think
but I already have a newer version installed anyway and I can easily put up with the demo limits until I have things running.
I have not fitted the steppers yet but there seems to be a little backlash in the X axis. I haven't measured it but I reckon it's about 10 - 15 Thou'. It feels like the whole feed screw is moving slightly axially and the X axis screw feels a little rough.
And now for the questions newbie ones I know but this is my first CNC machine.
What is best to lubricate it with, how much and how often, does it even need lubricating.
Can I adjust the X axis axial play to take out the backlash, if so how.
Is there any reason not to change the dodgy power cable for an earthed one.
Regards Mark.
P.S. Getting quite excited now hoping to hear my first stepper motor "squeak" very soon.