I’ve had my 1100MX almost two years now, but only this year started getting work, and only these past ~3 months working any more than 8 hours a week. These past three weeks i’ve put in around 30 hours per week. Mostly Delrin/Aluminum with a lot of weird 3D contours that require adaptive clearing, scalping and blending. And some rigid tapping, M4,5,6,8,10,12 if that matters at all.
I always make sure to pull the oiling lever no less than once every 2 hours, lately, once every hour to be safe.
Just today, my Z-axis has started vibrating during high-speed or rapid moves. At 180ipm, it literally shakes the machine, emits a very low frequency noise, and you can feel it in the concrete floor. No vibration or sound at all around 20ipm during machining.
The noise frequency is so low, my cellphone camera can’t hear it at all. Tried multiple ways to get a video, and on playback, can’t hear the vibration at all.
What would be the troubleshooting steps for this?
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
I get this when (I think) something gets onto the lead screw and then rides around on the bearing. I usually wind the z all the way down and oil the lead screw manually then blow it off and see if it fixes it. If not I go again. That has fixed it a couple times. Also once I had this happen and a reboot fixed it after the above didn’t resolve it.
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THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
Got a ladder out and climbed up the back of the machine and found a ton of aluminum chips hanging out up there. Probably need to be more careful about cleaning the vise with the air gun.
Concerningly though, i also found that the ways were pretty freaking dry… this cheap little hand pump that came with the machine doesn’t seem to cut it.
I had originally considered buying the automatic oiler when I bought the machine, but it’s a “dumb” oiler in the sense that it doesn’t know if the machine is actively running, or just sitting online overnight. It would continue pumping oil all night long while I’m sleeping. I found that if I turn the machine off overnight, then I have to completely re-zero my tool setter, tooling, etc, to get within 1thou on critical tolerances. 
Huge waste of time i.e. money.
I check to make sure the refrence bumpers (the metal things that hit the switches when you refrence machine) are tight regularly. On mine the x is loose after a couple weeks, but I power my machine every day.
The ways are tricky. They only need a tiny amount of oil. More oil attracts more junk to stick to it which makes it grind and turn into grease and then it attracts more junk. Less is ideal as it stays cleaner and then doesn’t attract as much chips and then doesn’t grind and need more oil to clear the sludge. Obviously there are reasons to use more oil but as long as there is a tiny bit and no metal grinding it should be fine. I pull my oiler once a day when i refrence and do a lap on all the axis. Once every 2 hours is probably a waste of oil, but it’s not going to hurt either. I hate filling my oiler though.
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Hahaha, i’ve spilled more oil on the ground than has ever gone into the machine, the location of the oiler fill flap is insanely bad. LOL.
Thank you again for your help! You saved me!
I moved my oiler out in the open on Pnc 1100. It was dificult to fill under the chip pan.
Dave
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