static electricity

[NormanAlbert]

Hi One and all: I had been having an issue with my spindle set-up that drove me a bit crazy. While running a job, the machine would stop at random times and places with no obvious reason why. I checked the drive screws, the bearings, any binding in the slides. Then went into the control box that I had built to check for any loose wires,non found. Mach 3 would not lose it's position tho I would have to go back a dozen or so lines of code to restart. I started to suspect static electricity some how was causing the problem. This machine is mostly of wood construction so I thought maybe the spindle, tho grounded by it's power cable might not be grounded externally. Ran a wire from the z spindle drive to the spindle grounded shield. While doing this I noticed a faint spark when I touched the wire to the screw on the shield. No, the spindle was not on at the tome. At any rate, I've run a number jobs since and have had no problems. Ah the wonders of electrons. Norm

[woody53]

I used a grounded hose on my dust collector because I heard others had problems with static. I was new when I got my machine and wanted to take all precautions to help keep problems away. SO far ( 5 years } alls well.

Dave

[garylmast]

I used a grounded hose on my dust collector because I heard others had problems with static.

Plus one!