After reluctantly selling my Starmill earlier this year, I'm having a bit of a clearout of all my related bits and bobs. I previously bought two new stepper motors for the mill but never got round to properly installing them. With the mill now I sold I have no use for them so have put them on eBay a...

Thanks Angel-Tech, but rather than trying to find something and make it work I elected just to buy the correct motor. I got it delivered a while ago but only just got round to finding the time to fit it. The wires on the old motor were: Pin3 - Brown Pin4 - Black Pin5 - Green/Yellow CutWires.jpg The ...

I just thought I'd update this thread in case anyone else experiences the same problem. After having the motor professionally assessed at Anstee & Ware, they discovered that the armature was completely burned out and believe it is most likely attributable to a "magnetism fault". I can say that altho...

Hi Andy, thanks for your comment.

I've actually now sent the motor away to have it looked at. Hopefully they'll be able to test it properly for me without it costing too much to sort out!

Thanks Martin

I don't suppose you happen to know of a suitable tool do you?

I've just looked online and they seem to come in a range of sizes and types.

Hello again, I was so busy over Christmas that although I ultimately managed to remove the motor from the mill, I never managed to remove the wiring and get it sent off. Anyway, I'm back to it now and want to get it sent off. One question though, the attached picture shows the wiring into the connec...

Hi Martin, Thanks for that link. It looks like the one I have so I'll try and inspect it more closely this evening. I just spoke to the chaps at Anstee & Ware who service and repair these motors. I'm sending it in to them next week so will post the results of their findings. Thanks for your assistan...

Thanks Martin. I already took it out. It was an absolute nightmare to do and I'm not looking forward to putting it back together... I found this company that is listed as a Baldor small DC motor repair centre so will give them a go. http://www.ansteeware.co.uk/2009/ElectricMotors/SmallMotorRepairs.h...

Thanks both. Although I don't have a lot of experience to go on, I thought they looked OK too. They certainly came out pretty easily and yes, the spindle turns by hand. I replaced the bearings in it earlier in the year so I know they're good too. So far I haven't tried to check any outputs as I'm no...

After finally managing to remove the motor, I pulled the brushes out to inspect them.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what a good brush or a worn one should look like.

Does anyone have any idea whether or not these brushes look any good or not?

Thanks

Thanks angel-tech, it doesn't look very easy to get to but I'll have a look at it this evening. It might take me a while to post my findings as it might take a while to get it out.

I checked all the fuses I could find and they all seemed to be OK. I fired the mill back up today and the spindle ran this time although only slowly and jittery again. This time however it ran for a short period of time and then I found smoke coming from what I assume was the spindle motor! I'm gues...

After resolving my communication problem, I started running the first program to test out the mill. Everything seemed to be going fine until the power tripped out. This was caused by something else but unfortunately cut the machining job short. I since fired the mill back up again to see if I could ...

I ended up resolving this issue by replacing the card. It appears the original was faulty, swapping it out for a replacement solved the problem straight away.

Hi Martin, thanks for the help. I tried right clicking on the machine icon and doing as you said. I got the following error message: "Machine not found! Com5 may be in use by another application" I also have VR Milling installed on another computer so tried it again with that machine. The software s...

Hi Martin, thanks for the response.

I'm using the last release of VR Millin V2.

Yes, I left the machine on for a while last night and the red - stayed illuminated the whole time.

Hi, Up until recently my PC connected to the Starmill most of the time. I found that on occasion, it wouldn't be possible to establish a connection between the mill and the PC. I'd have to restart the mill a few times and then it would be possible to make the connection. I found that over time the f...

Thanks for all the help so far, I've been away for a while but finally got everything back together and working. However, I still have a problem I need to figure out. I've replaced the bearings and everything seems to be OK, except for the fact that I'm getting a poor quality surface finish. I machi...

Thanks, will do.

I've got the whole spindle head off now so will take it to my local engineers to get the bearings pressed out.

OK, now that I've come this far I feel like I might as well replace the bearings anyway, especially as I'm pretty sure that they are the problem. Now I just need to source the correct bearings. From this thread: http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=712 I think I need an SKF 7208B. Like ...