Hi all,
I am back in business. As many of you may know I purchased a demo machine from SS last year, which had many problems. After a lot of work trying to get the machine to work, ShopSabre agreed to replace the machine with a new one. It came in a couple of weeks ago, installed in a day, and all tests have gone great. The machine works very nicely. It does have a sensitivity to cold for the TC though. Even after warming it up, it will not release the tool the first time (at $38 a pop, the plastic forks get expensive). After working the green switch on the spindle a bit, I have been able to get it out and reloaded. Once it starts working, there aren't any further problems, so I just do that first thing after warmup as a work-around. If any of you have ideas on how to fix this, let me know. (The shop is heated to 34-36 degrees when I am not in it, so it never freezes, but is cold enough to have this happen. The specs say it should work to 5 degrees)

Anyway, my thanks to ShopSabre for being willing to do what was necessary to get me back in business, even when it took replacing the machine. This is not something that was fun, and it was expensive for both of us, but they deserve a lot of credit for taking care of the problem.

At that sort of operating temps, I'm guessin you have a materials expansion problem. There is a difference in the expansion rates between metal and plastic. At room temps they are one size, and at lower temps they may not contract at the same rate, causing things to be just a bit out of tolerance.

To test the theory, put a small space heater directed to the plastic parts for an hour or so before firing up. If the problem is less, I'd suspect its a too cold problem.

Its the nature of mechanical systems to do this sort of devilish intermittency. But if two materials don't share the same expansion rate, and they need close tolerance to work, houston you have a problem.

Good luck with your Shop Sabre- I'm considering one myself, so I'm reading to see what kinds of problems, and how the company responds.

Thanks

Wayne

Have you tried parking your machine at the end of the day with the tool holder removed from the spindle? This also gives you more space to position a stop to catch the spindle when it drops, once the controller is off.

I 2nd the space heater, I use it on my powder coating oven all the time. It just takes 5 min and it's good to go!

Mick

Sorry for not catching these responses. I usually get an email when a thread I initiate gets a response. These are really good comments, and had I checked back I could have potentially saved myself some down time and money. The spindle refused to let go of a tool and took out 2 forks and a couple of tools. I sent it back to HSD for review to see what is going on. The manual says it should operate down to 35 degrees, I keep the shop at 40 or so when I am not around. I expect a response from HSD tomorrow on what they find. Looks like I will lose over 2 weeks of tool time.

Thanks for the advice, wish I would have checked the thread and tried you alternative before sending the spindle off.

I have my spindle back and am operational again. HSD replaced the air cylinder to minimize the air leakage. Apparently they hadn't seen this problem before and had to put the unit in the fridge to replicate the problem.