My motor ran all night

I just got this and used it yesterday. I turned it off, but didn’t unplug it and the motor ran all night. I’m thinking this is not good. Should I just unplug it to stop motor or keep it plugged in? I need some help

What motor are you talking about?

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The steppers are very hardy.
The router will wear its brushes, but otherwise should be fine.
The controller fan can run 24/7 without concern.

Do you mean the router? i.e the Dewalt? that has a limited lifetime for the brushes, but they are replaceable easily. As for the steppers I can’t imagine you mean those since why would your steppers be “running” without an active carve. The fans in the X-Controller can run forever (regular small fan motor). My stays on all the time. And I guess if it died it’s easy to replace a 40mm noctua fan.

Oh, and you should consider using the relay control that many of us have done so the router and dust collection (if you have) will start and stop with the carve.

Like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Iot-Relay-Enclosed-High-Power-Raspberry/dp/B00WV7GMA2/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=data+logger+relay+power+strip&qid=1602483220&sr=8-2

This way when I carve overnight it sill all shut itself off when the job finishes.

Please be careful :scream:

I mean sure, so can unattended air-conditioners. The middle video seems like a setup. The wood bursts into flames within seconds of the job starting. Really long jobs that I do are typically MDF, People say the same thing about 3D printers. But honestly I’ve done prints that have run for days. I certainly don’t unattended when I am milling metal.And I do have a webcam to monitor also.

Anything can fail - no argument.

But I dont think the comparison between a 3D printer or AC-unit is valid.
The finicky nature of the typical CNC-router have a very short path from running okay to energy out of control.

I would not be able to sleep, with a CNC running overnight in my basement. That is all.

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With 3D printers, you’re counting on a major electrical malfunction to cause a fire… Those are rare.
I’m sure you’ve had failed prints. Imagine if that failed print involved a dulling endmill spinning in oak at 20k rpm, while surrounded by chips and dust. It’s a different animal. Can happen fast… Several seconds to get a flame.
Like @HaldorLonningdal, I would not run mine overnight.

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Well we have a fire alarm system in the house of course, and those events are all with big v-bits. I rarely do huge v-carves, so those I can stay for. Like the gravestone for Halloween I’m doing right now is like a 12-minute carve. But a 1/16” end-mill isn’t going to catch fire, it’s gonna snap to start, and hard to get enough surface area to generate enough heat to set 0.75” MDF on fire. Most of my jobs are classic pocketing/milling operations so using a small straight carbide end-mill. Hell you can snap those just dropping them on the floor…

Henry - I am not going to tell you what you should do :slight_smile:

But I’ll argue your reasoning that a fine bit will just snap, that is assuming the router position will remain correct. I have made burn marks in MDF myself once when the router wanted to go below the MDF-board I was carving, thats like two seconds of a collett rubbing the MDF top surface. (lost steps on Z during retract) The router also took damage, the RPM governor circuit popped, smoked and hissed before I managed to kill power. When testing the router afterwards it would only run full RPM, wonder what 6hrs collett rubbing @ 27k RPM on a log of wood could have looked like…

A router with lost steps can be all over the board (pun intended)

Precautions are good, but when using a finiky hobby machine I simply would not trust it with my life.

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And did anyone find out which motor the OP was asking about?

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Well other than 3D printers have parts at 350-700 degrees (depending on what you’re printing with). And a fair amount of power flowing into things like the heated bed. So while the heat isn’t from friction it’s from the deliberate heating. And of course if like me you print in nylon a lot, nylon is flammable in and of itself.

But realistically many carving jobs are all-day affairs. The currently small project I am doing for a friend (I will post soon), it’s like a 9 hour long 3D carve (needs to be a 1/16" roughing/ball-nose) despite it being just 12x6". I mean that’s not realistic to sit near (and probably terrible for your hearing) for that long.