FÖRSTER Rail Welding Machine - Control Box Cover

grabcad

Control box cover for Forster rail welding machine. Machine from which this cover was modeled is #025, so probably an early build. Its design results in welding spatter that hits display, burns though it's protector, and destroying the resistive membrane that provides touch screen functions. An additional point of failure is an unsecured USB port cable connection to the controller board, which destroys the onboard connector on the controller board as the carriage moves back and forth along the carriage.This is the original cover before modifications. Control box contains a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and a (nearly obsolete) Chinese graphics board - neither of which belongs in an industrial environment. Forster's UGLY HACK to connect NEMA 23 MDrive stepper to right angle worm drive gearbox consists of a RF4Z bearing used as spacer, a flat washer floating around in grease at one end of the worm gear, and results in much friction (enough that it likely contributed to or was responsible for failure of the original MDrive's step controller board).Otherwise the control box is filled with quality components that should last for many years (the Raspberry Pi and it's display didn't).