Came in this morning to find the Multicam (apparently) down, but without any signage and nothing relevant on Talk. It is marked as inoperative on the tool status board but that was last updated on 2/2 so I’m not sure if this is captured yet. The E-stop on the pendant is taped, and the vacuum collar appears to have been crashed into the tool. The brush is cut through and sitting on the cabinet, and there’s a nice chunk taken out of the aluminum collar itself. The computer is also acting odd, seems like explorer.exe isn’t running (though that’s presumably unrelated and would probably be fixed by a simple hard reboot). Pics attached.
I’ll print a sign and put it on the machine. Just trying to get word out to save others a trip if they’re planning on using the CNC router.]
@Team_Woodshop @Team_Infrastructure
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Thanks for the update. We will review the cameras and see who was logged in and what happened.
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The machine is working fine. The e-stop has been taped for a while, I believe it is too encourage people to use the pause feature. The brush is fine as well, just not in the collar right now. The collar is beat up but has been that way for a while, I know my bit hit it months ago and I reported it then, seems to be working fine though. The computer station is buggy and sometimes it doesn’t work, I unplugged the power and plugged it back in and am writing this message from that computer. I took the broken sign off as it is working for me. Well, it is at least doing the spindle warm up just fine.
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I strongly advise against ever intentionally blocking an emergency stop. It’s for emergencies.
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Agreed, impeding the operation of the EMERGENCY stop button (that’s what the “E” stands for) is a TERRIBLE idea. In a commercial environment OSHA would eat us alive for this, and with good reason. The brush is not well retained by the damaged collar and could very well be the reason the machine has apparently been crashed MULTIPLE times. Let’s work to fix damaged equipment, not normalize it.
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I agree as well, I was guessing at the why but I sure wasn’t the one who taped it.
I was the last one using it and it works fine.
The brush is a bad design and always comes loose. It’s not damage.
The paper tape on the estop does not prevent it from working. The button is so trigger happy that just looking at it causes a full shut down and a lost job. The pendant is a bad design period. We’re not making due. It’s a multicam issue. You can test the estop the next time you’re 5 hours into a 6 hour job. It works fine. I really recommend always testing the estop about 10 minutes before a 6 hour job ends.
The dust boot with damage on it is from at least two years ago. Before I arrived. It’s been chewed at sever times over the years.
The yellow tape is the third repair I’ve done because of the pendant being dropped or the chord being yanked, or the chord being run over by the gantry. I was too lazy to heat shrink it this time.
The computer is fine just reboot it.
There’s nothing wrong with the machine
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This would indicate to me that the button needs replacement. Thwarting safety mechanisms is generally regarded as a bad idea, regardless of efficacy or lack thereof.
Its a categorically bad idea. Treat the problem not the symptom.
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Used the Multicam some more over the weekend. I can say with certainty the crash (or another one in the last few weeks) definitely did some damage.
While I agree that the cantilevered pressure foot isn’t the best design, one of its big problems at this point is that one of the two guide rods is now bent. We might be able to straighten it with the press, but it’d be a better bet just to take the dimensions from it and order a new one.
The bent guide rod isn’t something we should brush off as “Oh but the machine still works fine.” It may still cut, but if you’re actually setting it up correctly and ensuring that the pressure foot can retract for the full depth of your cut, you likely won’t be getting enough suction for the dust collector to work on the first pass. I know I wasn’t, to the point that other woodshop folks were asking me if the dust collector was turned on (which it was) or full (which it wasn’t).
Further, NOT confirming that the pressure foot is able to retract for the full cut depth is probably how a lot of these crashes happen in the first place.
As for Kee’s point about the E-stop, I didn’t notice anything out of character for the button itself from a tension standpoint. However, I DID notice that the machine doesn’t recover gracefully when the E-stop is disengaged (took a power cycle to clear the “Emergency Stop Activated” condition on the pendant), though I’m pretty sure it should (and used to) be able to be recovered. I suspect this is either a wiring or programming issue. Since the pendant cable has been damaged several times I lean toward wiring. Easiest place to start troubleshooting would be a new replacement cable. Think I saw them for about $45 on the Multicam site, although if it’s a normal 12-pin DIN cable I bet I can find them cheaper, and in different lengths if a longer cable would help.
All this said, I’d be willing to volunteer to take the lead on some of these repairs if there are no objections from woodshop committee. While I may not be an expert on this specific machine, I’m coming from 10 years of engineering experience developing and maintaining PLC controlled industrial equipment, so this type of thing is within my wheelhouse. Might just need some support from a standpoint of scheduling some machine downtime for repairs, and budget for parts ordering.
@Team_Woodshop, offer’s on the table. Let me know what you think.
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Thanks for looking into this and offering support! We have a few members that work for multicam. @themitch22 may be able to chime in… I would really like a technician from multicam to come in to do a check up and tell us exactly what the issues are and what needs to be replaced.
The dust collector boot on this machine isn’t the best design IMO. I have plans somewhere out of 0.5" polycarbonate we could make a better dust boot. I can look at the machine when I get back.
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