When I’m not running a job, I noticed that a stepper motor makes a crackling noise from time to time. It comes and goes and is hard to pinpoint because the sound seems to carry through the aluminum extrusions, lol. If it’s crackling and I jog the machine, it stops doing it.
Not worried about it but just want to know if this normal.
Hey Chuckler,
While I don’t own an Altbeast, I might be able to theorize with you to what it is the motor is doing.
At the moment I can only imagine the crackling. There are a lot of crackling noises to make though. Does it sound like electric arc crackling like an electric chair, or is it more like bubleplastic crackling while you squeez the life out of it, like snapping fingers?
Walking through a forrest when it hasn’t rained for a while. Snapping a twig like it’s someones arm?
Daaim, I’m in a dark mood today, I need to snap out of it!
Do you know if its one motor doing this and which?
Can kt maybe be the holding current for the motors that cause this effect?
LOL, yeah, exactly like taking a sheet of bubble wrap and twisting it to pop all the bubbles at once.
I put my ear against one and thought it was coming from it but then I put my ear against another one and it was coming from it too. But then I noticed I could hear it at the end of the extrusion.
Next time it happens, I’ll try to isolate it a bit more. Pretty sure it’s one of the two Y-axis steppers
I have the same noises happening on occasion. My theory is that the stepper location is slightly off and the feedback by the encoder causes a slight correction.
If you happen to have a situation where a particular motor does it frequent enough to catch it, try wiggling the ball screw and you will most likely find that the noise stops immediately.
I believe my mill only does it on the two y motors.