Multi axis Cnc lathe recomission- Remove your Caps.

Seeing that big red emergency stop button reminded me of a situation I once had. I was working away on one machine but kept seeing a reflection of a blue flash every now and then. I turned around to see the chuck control cable on my other machine flashing away as it had worn through and when it extended it contacted the end of the bed with a big 415v flash. As luck would have it the fitter saw it at exactly the same time so rushed around the back and I expected him to just turn the main isolator off. He just stood there with his hand on it looking at me. I'm yelling at him to turn it off and he's telling me to stop the machine. BAM I hit the emergency stop but nothing happened. BAM BAM BAM. Nothing. The thing was seized solid so had to turn everything off manually whilst the thing flashed away at me. Oh how we laughed....

Made sure I turned it off with the emergency stop at the end of every day after that.

After a quick chat about this machine with Johnny yesterday,I have decided you must have a degree in QUANTUM PHYSICS to plot the function of the B axis, ok I done a bit a bit about programming the basic X,Y,Z lathes in the last few years,
My apprenticeship, a long time ago, and the favoured up to date system was run by either TikaTape or IBM cardboard cards, and we had "Computer Room" that contained 2 IBM REEL to REEL computers, considered proper state of the art kit at the time in 1974, all very laughable now, but almost Rocket Science and James Bond stuff at the time.

With a combination of solder wick and a solder sucker, operation remove your cap commenced



Yep, definitely starting to leak



Big box of Capacitors arrived



The pile of replaced capacitors steadily grows



Some showing define signs of leaking, so my gut feeling was good 😊

Thanks again for posting all of this - I pretty much understand none of it (honestly you could post pictures of druids and covens and I would nod to myself and think ' of course that's how it works.' ) 

I am fascinated by the capacitor stuff - and am more generally interested in your comments above about precautions. I have two pieces of kit that need re-commissioning. First an Allen PB 1081 engine analyzer. I haven't seriously tried to re-commission it other than buying a new power cord and plugging it. (It has tubes!)

The second is a small handheld Micronta multimeter - battery powered. It turns on but that is where things stop. For instance I can't get a voltage reading from the car battery. The multimeter has possibly never been used and is probably 30 or so years old.

Obviously my preferred choice is just to drop them off   but, in the absence of that - any thoughts.

loving this!

Looks like you got to the caps just in time, it makes you wonder how much stuff goes for scrap just for the sake of a few simple components

Are you using a fancy solder sucker?

If you havent got a solder sucker put it on your xmass list, they are really good bits of kit and suprising how much they suck up!

Had plenty of curved balls thrown my way over the last couple of months. One being the other cnc lathe dying due to suffocation,as described elsewhere on the forum. 🙄

It did highlight the need to get this going. With everything else going on at the moment,progress on this has been erratic to say the least. Have some dirty pictures....🤣🤣🤣

Foot pedals that open and close the Chuck have never been cleaned





Cover off to find this load of shavings blocking up the parts catcher





Cleaning continues.....

^^^what he said!!

Can you imagine what the origional operators car or home is like!!