problem with air pressure

[Jason Stephenson]

Hi

Having a big problem with air pressure, the gauges all show that air pressure is up at 100 psi but when it goes to change a tool it takes about 15 seconds to eject the tool but when it puts the next tool in it only takes a few seconds to grab. to me it sounds like there is a sensing problem somewhere, would really like some advise thanks Jason

[Keith Neal]

We used to have a similar problem with the tools not wanting to release, for us it was a condensation issue. With the weather turning cold and having to turn down the heat at night to cut down on costs condensation would build and sometimes rust would develop on the tool(especially during the weekends when we're off). Our solution (as offered by another forum member) was to turn off the air when the machine was not running,making sure to drain the moisture from the lines. On fridays before leaving we take the tool out of the router(remembering to return it before running router,very important!). So far this has worked,no tool release problems. Another hint is to manually remove tools every once in awhile and clean the cone with a scotchbrite.
good luck!-Keith

[Rob Davis]

If you can see residue on the taper portion of the tool holder, they will not release easily. You need to take a scotchbrite pad or similar and clean the taper. Remember to also do what you can to clean the receiving side of the router motor where tool goes as it gets build up on it too. Don't put oil on these areas or you will gum them up even more. We learned that if these are not clean, they stick really badly. Any time we see build up, we clean them with a dry pad. We cut a lot of MDF and this seems to really gum things up with heat and resin making things sticky.

[Jason Stephenson]

I have already cleaned all the tools and the router aswell, i just done a tool lockout and tried to manually remive the tool and it seem to take ages to eject and now i have the problem that i can't get the tool back in! also when we were cutting out yesterday we would cut 1 sheet then lift the sheet off and it would come up with low air pressure and vsd fault evrything else in our workshop is running off the air compressor so its not that!

[Rob Davis]

May sound silly, but is the gage working? If you turn off all the air and bleed the system, does the gage go to 0? If it only goes to 40, when you read 100 you only have 60. You may have low air pressure and not know it. Or is one of the lines crimped so you might have 100 psi but as soon as it wants flow, the pressure goes low since it can't get volume? Or is line plugged with water or crud and not getting enough flow? You could disconnect at end of hose and blow air through and see if you are blowing little chunks of anything out.
We had an issue on another machine when we installed our air dryer and it dried out all the junk in the lines and little pieces got into valves and we fought that for a while until we got it all stabilized.
Just a couple more thoughts trying to help. I know how frustrating something like this can be.

[Jason Stephenson]

Rob Thanks for all the advice we actually went through all the air lines and came to the conclusion that it had to be the compressor our compressoer has a dryer on it aswell and went out and let the air out of it was showing 120psi on the machine then when we let the air out of it there didn;t seem to be much air at all> so after ringing the compressor company we came to the conclusion that the dryer had to be re gased so we spent 6hours pulling down the router head and it wasn't even the cnc it was the compressor.WHAT A DAY Jason