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Thread: Recovering from the flood
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11th March 2011, 11:37 AM #1
Recovering from the flood
I haven't been on the forum for a few weeks because I have only just got back power to the house after the recent Brisbane flooding. The electrician I hired found a few bits of wiring that he suspected had been performed by someone who was not a licensed electrician. I asked him to bring the whole house up to current Australian standards. It took him a long time. It would appear that I have more power points in my house than he has ever seen in a house in all his years as an electrician. - I need them all.
He also removed all the 30 or so down lights that I had in the lounge and kitchen and dining room as they are not nowadays allowed to be within 200mm of any timber in the roof. Oh well, the new lights will be considerably cheaper to run.
The water came to just 20mm below our top level floor boards, but everything under the house was submerged.
The water also took the opportunity to remove our side fence and back verandah. It is one hell of a step down from the rear door now.
My wife's work room was completely ruined and is now just a framework of studs and the rest of beneath the house isn't in any better shape either. Also, I had a tool room that had about 100 metres of shelves that held all my screws, nails, paint, power tools and just about everything that needed to have a home. All of that grew in thickness to about 30mm and that made it quite difficult to remove the shelving.
My main worry was of course my CNC machine
It is far to big to load on to a truck for transport as also are the many other machines I have under my house. The most I could do for the CNC was to disconnect and remove all the control circuitry and also save the spindles and the router bits. There wasn't time to do any more than that.
The table top, which was originally 30 mm MDF with 640 odd holes in it and each of which had a screwed insert in the bottom, finished up about 90mm thick after it's swim and the inserts were just too difficult to attempt recovery. I will need to completely remake the top.
I also have to strip the motors from the CNC and give them a good cleaning. I wire brushed the inside of the coil and the ourside of the rotor. The bearings seemed to be reasonable, so unless they start to squeal I am contenting myself with oiling them.
I have attached some pictures of the motor disassembly and cleaning. One motor down two more to go. The picture titles are self explanatory
Still, it could have been a lot worse, all the other poor buggers just down the road from me - their houses all went completely under and most of them are still just empty gutted frames.Bob Willson
The term 'grammar nazi' was invented to make people, who don't know their grammar, feel OK about being uneducated.
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11th March 2011, 12:39 PM #2
Bob, I think I would be absolutely devastated if my shed / house was flooded. I'm not real sure how I would cope, if at all.
Congratulations on the positive attitude!Kev
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11th March 2011, 05:32 PM #3GOLD MEMBER
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I second that - good attitude Bob.
Cheers,
Rod
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11th March 2011, 09:19 PM #4
what size is that motor ? , i might have a spare , just got a shipment in from ebay , 34 size , 600-800oz 8 wire ( yours is four wire ) , bought it for its 10:1 gearbox and 24volt brake , will be running servo's so the mortor is not needed , if it is the right size ill send it to you ,
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11th March 2011, 09:29 PM #5
Bob that's terrible news, very sorry to hear it. Just about all the bearings in RV's motors at Sumner Park were noisy or have become noisy, I rekon while you have them apart you might as well change the bearings. The water at least at Sumner Park has turned out to be very corrosive, it's incredible how etched metal parts have become. Best of luck with it.
Cheers
Michael
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12th March 2011, 12:49 PM #6
I thank you all for your concern and various offers of help.
At this stage I don't think I need any help, but if I do then I certainly know where to go to get it.
Thank you too for your kind offer of a spare motor SawDustSniffer. You are correct that the existing motor is a Nema34. It is a 1200oz motor from Ausxmods that I purchased in an effort to make my machine run at 10 metres a minute. This was before somebody pointed out to me that the top revs of a stepper was about 800 RPM and if I wanted to go any faster then I have to use a gear box of some sort. . I hope that the motors I have will work OK when I start up the machines again. If not then I will certainly take advantage of you.as the 1200oz is ridiculously over engineered. .
I didn't mention in the first post that when the room downstairs was dis-en-gyprocked, we found hoardes of white ants in the walls and ceiling. We called in the white ant man and he found four huge nests of the buggers. Three under my computer room (explains the cracked tiles) and another one in the roof. $3k and three weeks later and we are still getting dead ants dropping from various cracks in the house and around the windows. Hopefully that will end soon.
While the house was empty we took the opportunity to repaint the inside. We finished that and then the electrician came and started demolishing it all, so we had to start patching holes in the walls and ceiling and repainting again. Still, now it is all together again it looks very nice.
BobBob Willson
The term 'grammar nazi' was invented to make people, who don't know their grammar, feel OK about being uneducated.
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31st March 2011, 04:06 PM #7
The two smaller motors seem to be working OK but I am having difficulty with the 1200 oz motor.
I initially cleaned it all up and reassembled it and it turned by hand quite nicely with just the normal amount of resistance.
Today, I tried starting up the motors to test them. The two little ones are (as I said previously) OK, but the big one seems to be binding somewhere.
I took it apart again to see if some rust had rebuilt since I last fixed it but there doesn't seem to be anything there. I wire brushed it all again anyway and also searched for any stray bits of wire brush that might have got stuck to the (magnetic) rotor. -- Nothing. I also made sure that the bearings were all free and turning easily. - they are. I reassembled it and it binds. Disassembled again. - Nothing wrong that I can see anywhere.
It is as if the field has swollen and is clamping onto the rotor. But that is ridiculous. The only thing I can think of is if the motor casing that houses the field has managed to retain some rust and is pressing onto the field and distorting it.
Does anyone have any ideas on what else could be wrong with it because I would much rather not have to buy another motor?
BobBob Willson
The term 'grammar nazi' was invented to make people, who don't know their grammar, feel OK about being uneducated.
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31st March 2011, 04:43 PM #8
Hi Bob
I was thinking about you yesterday when drilling holes to secure the work table on my machine and all the holes you drilled on yours.
Maybe you could put some bearing blue or marker pen on the rotor then give it a spin and see if it is binding on the rotor anywhere.
Have you tried shorting the coils and turning by hand? If the coils are working there should be increased resistance when shorted.
Good luck with it.
Cheers
Brian
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31st March 2011, 07:43 PM #9
Hi Brian
As I said above, the rotor is binding on the field somewhere. it didn't before the water gave it a bath so why is it doing so now?
The coils do seem to be working. When I applied power the rotor turned but only very slowly due to the binding.
Bob WillsonBob Willson
The term 'grammar nazi' was invented to make people, who don't know their grammar, feel OK about being uneducated.
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31st March 2011, 08:58 PM #10GOLD MEMBER
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Bob,
I have been told never to disassemble a stepper motor because of the close tolerances. Onya for having a go and maybe because of those close tolerances it just needs a tweak of the screws, motor caps and a few terse words to stop the binding.
I can help out with the terse words.Cheers,
Rod
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31st March 2011, 09:19 PM #11SENIOR MEMBER
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Yea I believe rods right on the money.
I've seen what you are talking about a few times but normally a strip and rebuild fixes the problem.
If you cant get it up and running you can send it back and I'll see what I can do.
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1st April 2011, 03:36 PM #12
I managed to get it running again.
Using the clues that you two provided I reasoned that if it was running before and these motors are as fussy as you say, then the only part that could have been reassembled differently was the front cover plate which has four possible positions. (The rear cover plate can only go in one position as it has to accommodate the wiring.) It was already in one of those positions and it wasn't working; so that left three more positions to try. So, take off cover, turn through 90 degrees and reassemble. Do this twice more (because of course it had to be the last possible position) and it turns again.
Hooked up the wiring and yahoo it runs like a bought one. - Hold on - it is a bought one.Bob Willson
The term 'grammar nazi' was invented to make people, who don't know their grammar, feel OK about being uneducated.
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1st April 2011, 06:38 PM #13GOLD MEMBER
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Hi Bob,
Good news but it was the uttering of terse words from this side of the island that really fixed the problem.Cheers,
Rod
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1st April 2011, 06:57 PM #14
OK, then utter a few more and I will see if the rest of the machine fixes itself up too.
Bob Willson
The term 'grammar nazi' was invented to make people, who don't know their grammar, feel OK about being uneducated.
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1st April 2011, 07:58 PM #15GOLD MEMBER
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Done
Cheers,
Rod
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