I have a 3030 mk2. I have a 800w water cooled spindle mounted. This spindle is about 2-1/2 lbs heavier than the recommended trim router. I have only had this set-up for a couple of months and have done 6 or 8 projects. I really like the machine and only the user has been the responsible for any issues except one. I like to do detailed 3-d carves. Some of them can take 8-10 hours on the finish pass. I have found that as the carve progresses my z-axis is very slowly creeping down. Over the course of an 8 hour carve it could be as much as 2 mm. The surface of the carve is very smooth, you can not see any steps where it suddenly jumps down. I believe the cause is the weight of the spindle gradually dragging the axis down over extended time.
How can I stop this? Would setting my grbl $1 setting to 255 help? Is it ok to do that? Do I need a higher torque stepper motor on the z axis? Maybe tweak the potentiometer on the driver? Any suggestions would be appreciated
I think if that’s what the problem is, axis creeping because of weight, then setting $1 to 255 could help. The only problem is the motors will get hotter because they are never off. This could maybe shorten their lifetime. I would look into some active cooling for them if I was forced to set $1 to 255. Just my opinion.
I would start by ensuring your assembly still agrees with these instructions with respect to the locking nut and coupler. They need to sandwich the bearing plate firmly. Then take a look at the lead screw anti back lash assembly.
After that …
In case you missed it here are some procedures for adjusting $1
How about a counterweight? Eye hook in the ceiling, rope and a 2lb. weight? The higher the ceiling the better, to avoid a sharp angle affecting X Y movement.
@rythmik I think that your advice is good, Mike. However, since the original post was almost a year ago, and since the OP has never posted back to report that @_Michael advice solved his problem, I am going to assume that it did. I will mark the issue resolved and close the topic.