mid carve, the x-carriage seemed to be just shaking back and forth. I noticed that the back shaft of the motor was rotating but the pulley side wasn’t.
No big deal, except i’m worried about removing the self tapping screws in the makerslide. The bottom screw next to the makerslide that seems to be the only thing preventing me from keeping the x-carve in one piece.
Anyone run into this? Any thoughts or suggestions?
thanks/
Sounds more like the small screw on the pulley came loose, there should be no need to remove the self tapping screws
set screws are tight, the motor shaft is not responding on the pulley side.
I don’t think they are separate shaft. All connected true core assembly. Seems like broken shaft behind front bearing.
Never heard of a broken shaft on a stepper. So either the set screws holding the pulley on are loose/fallen out or there are serious problems.
Undoing and redoing the self tappers is fine. I’ve had my machine apart a couple of times with no ill effects. But I’d doubly confirm your broken stepper before going that far.
Cheers
Ian
Thanks Ian and Alan.
just confirmed that it is indeed broken
Once i loosened the belt, the pulley and broken shaft fell right off. The shaft is sheered just above grease line in the photo.
For the future reference; main cause for this breakage is very commonly pushing axis with hand fast. Stepper generates power and starts grumbling. Shafts are mostly (Not all steppers) pressed to cores one from each side. If it joggles hard, it comes loose. Be very slow if you have to move it by hand. Second cause is crashing axis to sides. that is hard impact. in that case you better go over your Hard/Soft limits you can find enough info on this forum. Good luck.
Good to know! I may need to be a little softer when jogging the carriage, but I never do it with the power on.
My limit switches have prevented any crashes side to side though.
Glad you confirmed it Tyler without tearing the machine apart. Never seen a broken shaft like that myself though, new one on me.
But I guess on the plus side, its an easy fix, sort of 
Haha Sort of is right Ian. Did you use loctite or the blue PL when you re-installed the self tappers?
Customer Success Team has been awesome and is already sending me a new motor.
Good to hear you know about soft limits. Even you turn power off, they generates back power to make break and risk your Gshiels driver chips.
No, didn’t use anything on the self tappers just did them up tight. The set screws on the pulleys is the only thing I use blue thread lock on as mine kept working loose.
Thanks for the Tip!
What spindle are you using, Just wondering if they’re going to stop selling the Nema 17’s now that they stopped selling the stock spindle. Not sure they can handle the Dewalt 611’s weight. Just a thought.
What a sad sight… poor motor
it’s the stock 300w. I know, I know, I should have got the 34’s regardless.
I had this happen on my x-axis motor as well, snapped right in the middle of the motor, mid way through a cut in MDF.
