Mill won't run... fault light on...

[Matt McColley]

Due to many circumstances... some foreseen and others not.... my Grizzly X3 mill has sat idle since it's arrival last March. It's been in my dry basement waiting for me.

Finally, tonight I fire it up to do the spindle break in routine called for in the owners manual....

Fault light... mill won't run!

I pull the fuse and check it with a multi meter, and it's good.

After a few times removing and re-installing the fuse, the fault light goes out and the power light comes on. So I start the mill and run the mill in low range at slow, med. and fast speeds. I turn the power switch off and change the gearbox to High range and get the fault light again when I turn it back on.

Now I can't get the fault light to clear after several attempts with the fuse (which is still showing continuity with the multi-meter).

Ughhhhh! Not what I was looking forward to. And now the mill is beyond it's one year warrantee period.

Any recommendations?

[mmprestine]

Check the e-stop circuit. An easy test is to just jumper it out at the board.

[Teyber12]

if it is the board, i switched to another motor and have all my x3's electronics in the corner of my garage

[cornbinder23]

Lets start simple here first order of business is the typical tug test you would be surprised how far a screw can turn on that sloooow boat from china
I checked my wiring before I started and had probably 50% of the connections loose even a wire completely out of the terminal

[jimbo7]

Matt,

The X3 controls require the speed switch to be set to "0" when the forward/reverse switch is moved to the run position. If this switch is not full "0" you will get a fault light. If you are following Grizzly Break-In proceedure, I believe this is not clearly stated and may instruct you to switch on improperly.

Have a good day,
Jimbo7

[Matt McColley]

thanks for the replies guys....

I have some good leads for my trouble shooting...

full zero on the speed selector then cycle forward reverse switch....

Check connections on e-stop and then general inspection and snugging up connectors on the board and collumn switches.

Not real impressed with the mills torque, as I could slow the motor by squeezing the spindle with my right hand at just about every low range speed setting.

Oh well.... at least I'm making 'some' progress with the conversion gig again, even if it is two steps forward, one step back.

[Matt McColley]

Pulled all the covers and tightened all the block terminals, checked all the solder joints and wiggled all the connectors...

All to no avail...

Then I fiddled around with the fuse holder and Bingo!

Don't know what exactly I did.... but I got through the run in procedure and experimented some more without any more problems.

[z3t4]

Hi Matt,
I had exactly this problem last year: got an X3 from Axminster, finally got around to unpacking it 6 months later (other stuff to do), didn't work. Eventually, after a swapout pcb trial from Axminster, it turned out that the microswitch on the safety screen (the little perspex door) was only just not being actuated when the screen was in place. Like a lot of probs it was obvious only when discovered, IYSWIM.
John

[Matt McColley]

microswitch on the safety screen

that's interesting....

I have the Grizzly version though and don't believe it has such a safety screen with the switch controlled interlock, though I could certainly be wrong.

I have my mill up and running now and am having a ball and learning a ton manual milling machine conversion parts.

I read through a CNC routing guide published by Onsrud and am putting a lot of that info. into practice, both on my X3 and at work. I actually understand chip rate now. I increased the feed rate by a factor of four on our old dog router and am seeing much less bit burning, while making very minor sacrifices in cut quality.