Multicam Apex 1 Issues

[nastewart0521]

We've had a multicam apex 1 for about a year and a half now and have had many issues with it. The biggest issue we had was the cut quality. At random points in the cut there would be chatter (see photo). They couldn't figure out the issue for a really long time and I want to say they made three trips out to our shop to work on it. After the last trip they made we told them we no longer want the machine and have lost faith in multicam since they couldn't solve the issue. Once we told them this they then said they decided to replace the drives and upgrade us to the apex 3 drives. This solved the issue. It turns out this issue had happened before to another customer. Because of all the issues we've had, we asked them to extend the warranty so they agreed to for 6 months.
Before this warranty runs out I'm debating on having them come back out because there is something I just don't think is quite right. The machine is extremely loud and vibrates like crazy! We have an 2015 AXYZ 5x10 table as well and the thing has never had any cutting issues like the multicam and sounds 10x smoother with 10x less vibration. The reason we went with the Mulitcam over the AXYZ is because we had some bad experiences with AXYZ technical support. Has anyone ever heard of issues like this with multicam? Should we have them back out?

 

[JBurton]

Looks like the issue with that particular cut is acceleration, something most machine manufacturers won't even consider. They figure when they put a big beefy driver on any given axis, it'll push the bit as fast as it can go without any consideration for inertia and deflection. I'm assuming the bit came from the right side of the image to the left. Once it hit the corner, it had to change direction, and it did it at full speed, rather than ramping the speed up as it goes. This causes the bit to bend (deflection), and while it didn't break, it then vibrated as the cut continued until it stopped, right about where the cut smoothes out.
Ask them how you can adjust the acceleration down, do a series of test cuts, and see if it doesn't totally solve the issue. If they can't offer a simple way to turn the acceleration down during cuts, without slowing down the machine during rapid moves, let me know and I can probably find a solution for you.
The AXYZ likely isn't pushing the motors to their limit to begin with, so it has a much smoother operation, where as the apex series is designed to squeeze every inch per second out of the motors, which gives a much 'rougher' feeling to it's operation.

 

[nastewart0521]

Looks like the issue with that particular cut is acceleration, something most machine manufacturers won't even consider. They figure when they put a big beefy driver on any given axis, it'll push the bit as fast as it can go without any consideration for inertia and deflection. I'm assuming the bit came from the right side of the image to the left. Once it hit the corner, it had to change direction, and it did it at full speed, rather than ramping the speed up as it goes. This causes the bit to bend (deflection), and while it didn't break, it then vibrated as the cut continued until it stopped, right about where the cut smoothes out.
Ask them how you can adjust the acceleration down, do a series of test cuts, and see if it doesn't totally solve the issue. If they can't offer a simple way to turn the acceleration down during cuts, without slowing down the machine during rapid moves, let me know and I can probably find a solution for you.
The AXYZ likely isn't pushing the motors to their limit to begin with, so it has a much smoother operation, where as the apex series is designed to squeeze every inch per second out of the motors, which gives a much 'rougher' feeling to it's operation.

I see what you're saying it definitely has more of an abrupt/fast change of motion compared to the AXYZ. I still wonder about the noise and vibration though. It's so much louder than the AXYZ!

 

[JBurton]

I see what you're saying it definitely has more of an abrupt/fast change of motion compared to the AXYZ. I still wonder about the noise and vibration though. It's so much louder than the AXYZ!

Like the family car being driven by the teenager vs the mom, acceleration is everything.
What software are you using to make files for the machine?

 

[nastewart0521]

We use both Enroute and V-carve. We prefer V-carve but Enroute is the only software that allows us to do a print and cut with the camera. Do you have a multicam?

 

[JBurton]

I have a 35 year old multicam, but when I went to upgrade, I bought a shopsabre. I have a registration camera, though it uses optiscout with winCNC.
I'm not entirely sure what is driving the multicam's these days, you have any clue?

 

[nastewart0521]

The camera on the Mulitcam is a cognex camera and it uses coreo or enroute.

 

[JBurton]

Wild, I knew there had to be alternative camera setups, I got pretty frustrated with optiscout when my camera just stopped working, and for the longest time they were quoting me a whole new 'system' at $11k to replace. Took forever for me to convince them that they should be able to sell just the camera, I have the software, wiring, etc, and even then it was $2k to replace.

 

[Signed Out]

I see what you're saying it definitely has more of an abrupt/fast change of motion compared to the AXYZ. I still wonder about the noise and vibration though. It's so much louder than the AXYZ!

Any update on your apex 1r? Currently looking at them and a few other machines. Were you able to slow the acceleration down or figure anything out? Do you think the 1R should be avoided?

 

[nastewart0521]

Any update on your apex 1r? Currently looking at them and a few other machines. Were you able to slow the acceleration down or figure anything out? Do you think the 1R should be avoided?

We are at the point where we have lost faith in our machine. They basically upgraded us to an apex 3 by swapping out a lot of our apex 1 parts with apex 3 parts and it still had issues. They slowed down our acceleration to as slow as it can go so now it's slower than our axyz but seems to have helped the chatter issue a little bit. I'm not sure if this is a common issue or not with multicam machines so I don't want to say that they make bad products. They have been very responsive with all the issues and their service is a lot better than axyz service. We'll see what happens with our machine and the best way I can describe it is we have a lemon.

What do you plan on doing with your new cnc router?

 

[Bxtr]

We've been running a Mulitcam for the past 9 years and the thing is a tank. The service on the other hand isn't great, we use a former tech of Multicam to come service our machine. He's out of Colorado and because there are 4 or 5 machines in the area we just have him add us to his trips. But we've been looking at a ShopSabre to replace our Multicam with in the next few years. They are located less than 4 hours away from use and it seems like the tech support is outstanding in comparison to Multicam. Although we have called in them since they were bought out/merged with Kongsberg...

 

[nastewart0521]

I have an update to this situation. Mulitcam sent out their guy who oversees all of the techs to check out the Apex 1. He discovered that one of the mounting plates for the gear box was manufactured backwards. Because this machine was under stress when it shouldn't have been it stretched out some of the parts as I continued to use the machine over the past year. Long story short he got the new rack and other parts delivered overnight and put them on the machine. The machine is now running flawlessly!

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I have an update to this situation. Mulitcam sent out their guy who oversees all of the techs to check out the Apex 1. He discovered that one of the mounting plates for the gear box was manufactured backwards. Because this machine was under stress when it shouldn't have been it stretched out some of the parts as I continued to use the machine over the past year. Long story short he got the new rack and other parts delivered overnight and put them on the machine. The machine is now running flawlessly!

Happy to see this was resolved, because I've been running various MultiCam models for 20 years or so, and they usually run great- though I freely admit their tech support is sometimes slow.