CNC maintenance tips – 6 steps to a longer life for your CNC router or plasma
By scribe
CNC machinery is not cheap and is prone to wear and tear over time – especially if not properly cared for. Any downtime caused by machine failure also comes at the expense of time and money for your operation.
Understanding how to maintain your machine can extend its life and usability without having to pay for a repair or a replacement. Here are some maintenance tips to help you take proper care of your CNC machine and keep it running smoothly from one project to the next.
Set (and stick to) a maintenance schedule
It’s easy to say you want to perform regularly scheduled maintenance on your machinery, but with everything else going on in the shop and in our everyday lives, it can be even easier to prioritize other matters and skip out on maintenance on more than one occasion.
Setting a schedule and staying disciplined in sticking to it helps combat this negligence over time and also makes it easy to remember how long it’s been since you last performed regular maintenance on your machine.
Monitor your machine’s grease
Grease is a key component of your CNC machine’s operation, and this needs to be done regularly to ensure continued efficacy. You should also take note of whether or not your machine is consuming grease more quickly than it should, and take steps to correct any issue if there is one.
Your machine’s manual will help inform you of how often you need to grease.
Order consumables before you need them
We’ve all ordered consumables when we’ve specifically needed a replacement, but doing so after the fact means waiting days for the new part to come in before we can pick up operation again.
Proactively ordering replacement consumables and having them on hand in the shop allows you to quickly swap out parts as needed and get back up and running without having to deal with the frustrations of downtime.
Use your own past experience or talk to others in the industry to learn which consumables are most likely to come into play and make sure you have those in arm’s reach before kicking off a project.
Don’t be afraid to retire a part or machine
There’s no room for sentimentality when it comes to CNC machinery. Foolishly hanging on to and using a machine or part beyond its serviceable life is only going to cost you time and money. It’s important to be able to admit when the time has come to retire such components and replace them with newer and better versions that will improve your work.
Purchasing from ShopSabre is the best way to ensure you buy your second machine the first time and put any concerns about replacements on the backburner.
Log your maintenance history
A lot can happen over the life of a machine, whether it’s breakdowns, part replacements, or anything in between. Keeping detailed records of when you performed which maintenance tasks will keep you up to speed on your machine and will also help remind you when you’re due for certain tasks or updates.
Prevent instead of react
All of these steps work toward preventing maintenance issues and their related downtime before they occur, and that’s a critical aspect to note. Getting ahead of issues rather than reacting to them after the fact works wonders for your shop’s efficiency and keeps production and income moving along steady timelines.
Develop habits of prevention rather than reaction to optimize your CNC processes across the board.
Keep your CNC operation running smoothly with ShopSabre
ShopSabre’ s industry-best CNC machines provide precision, efficiency, and total versatility to help aspiring hobbyists and full-time commercial shop owners alike produce truly outstanding results with a fraction of the labor. Shop our unmatched collection of CNC routers and plasmas today to take your shop’s quality and productivity to the next level.