Hey team - just bought a PRO6060 off fb marketplace and working to get it dialed back in. Initial tram showed a whopping 1.1mm forward nod on the z axis. Measured everything and narrowed it down to the z moving plate. All of the bolts seem tight and aligned on the plate, but it’s still 1mm out of square from top to bottom. What should I look for to correct? Should I just try to shim under the lower bearing block connections to correct? This is my first Avid, so I don’t know what I don’t know. Thanks!
The x gantry and the bearing plate that rides on it are square- the red parts of the z are square/plumb as well. It’s just that moving plate
You could always take that plate off and see if there’s any debris or anything causing that gap?
The more important question is whether your Z-axis travel is actually square. I recently checked mine by placing a machinist’s square on a leveled surface plate and running a dial indicator up and down the square while jogging the Z-axis. Any deviation would indicate the Z-axis isn’t traveling perfectly vertical.
How would you level your surface plate?
After X and Y have been leveled you can use a dial indicator and shim it
That’s super cool - what is the dial indicator riding on?
@JeffsDesign trying - problem now is that when I went to loosen the bolts the ball end of my allen wrench sheared off inside the bolt/screw head - trying to get that out without screwing (pun intended?) the aluminum up. Just got back from Harbor Freight with some sweet half price Icon extractors!
Magnetized to a piece of metal I attached to the z axis - but could be anything
I think most of us have stripped those screws on the moving plate at some point - could use a quality upgrade @Eric
I had that happen to me as well! I thought it was a good idea to replace them all with new ones
Are there any torque specifications for any of the hardware?
I could not find them in the assembly manual (pdf); did I miss them?
I use the good and tight method which means by feel! I haven’t seen any torque specs either.
I hope they will publish some torque specs soon. All threads in aluminum structures can be easily stripped by applying “extra” torque for keeping the parts together. I use Blue Loctite Stick for all my assemblies such as FDM printers, CNC milling, motorcycles etc.
Update. I was able to get the moving plate off today. There’s no chips, burrs or obvious defects underneath. I cleaned everything and reattached and the same forward nod is there. The plate it bolts to appears to be square, as does the x gantry plate. See pics. One thing I did check that’s interesting - the nod seems to be smaller the high I move the Z - it could also be because I only have a couple of inches of square at that height
Another update - spent some time on the phone with Avid support, and I’ve ordered a new moving plate, which apparently a new and improved design. Hoping that will ship today and hoping that it solves the problem. The only other thing I can think is that since I THINK it getsa tiny bit better as the z height increases, maybe there’s something I’m not measuring or checking? @greg.obj I think you mentioned this further up the thread with the pic of your dial indicator - what could be bent, out of square, or otherwise wonky that would cause that forward leaning nod to get worse as the plate moves lower on the z axis?
The moving plate itself isn’t important here - the question is are your vertical linear rails tilted relative to your X and Y linear rails. That is what my setup checks for, moving plate mounted or not.