rowan2•16d ago

Last Thursday was the single worst shift I've had in 8 years of running CNCs

I came in at 6 AM and the first machine had already thrown a 401 alarm before I even punched in. Turns out the coolant line had been leaking all night and dumped about 15 gallons of fluid across the floor near the electrical cabinet. I spent the first two hours mopping up and checking for damage. Then on my second part of the day, a 2 inch end mill snapped clean in half on a simple aluminum pocket because the collet nut must have loosened overnight. That set me back another 45 minutes swapping tools and re-zeroing. By noon I had scrapped three parts worth about $120 each in material alone. The worst part was the foreman telling me to just "pick up the pace" while I was still finding coolant puddles under the chip conveyor. Has anyone else had a shift where everything just snowballed before you even got started?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_hugo16d ago

Did you check if the coolant got into any of the limit switches? I had a similar thing happen where a tiny puddle shorted a prox sensor and threw false alarms for two days before I finally found it. Sounds like your foreman's got that classic "just work faster" approach to problems he doesn't understand.

iris_davis9016d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, @the_hugo, a puddle actually did that to a sensor?!