So I am a little frustrated, and still fairly new with my Xcarve 1000. Have had it for a couple months now and have primarily been carving some wildlife scenery primarily on pine and birch plywood. The first few cut great but here lately been having some issues with things staying lined up after changing the bits.
I will post a picture from last nights carve (was so frustrated I forgot to take a picture). So here is the jist.
I rough cut the big areas with a 1/8" DC bit, then switch the the 60 degree V bit. I am extremely careful removing the bit from the dewalt. Once I proceed with the finish cut it cuts like it is a 1/16" off. Again, will submit a picture when I can.
Does anyone have any tricks for truly locking the positions so things don’t move or any other ideas?
Do you have home switches?
If you have home switches, after you change the bit, run a homing cycle (issue a $h to GRBL) and let it refind home. This will reset your machine to be at the same X/Y position that was previously used. Any lost steps during the first stage would be negated and it shouldn’t cause any issues.
Also, check your Xcontroller DIP switches. Turn off switch #4 on all axis. It’s way more harmful than helpful when it comes to 2 stage carves.
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curious, what does switch 4 enable/disable?
When enabled the current to each idle motor is reduced to 40% = less holding torque when stationary.
No need.
A feature Inventables calls “Automatic Torque Reduction”. What it does is when there is no motion on an axis, the stepper drivers have an input pin toggled which reduces the reference voltage to 30% of its nominal value which essentially is a reduction in the torque produced. This enables the carriage to be movable by hand due to a drastically reduced torque.
Thank you for the info. I do in fact have the homing switches. So just so that I make sure I am reading that correctly. After the roughing cut. Change the bit out, rehome the unit. Once rehomed I can start the cut process again and select the finish cut, then simply select the last know XY, and it should start from where the rough cut XY was? Figured it was something easy and I was reading it the wrong way.
So if I were to use the same xy start position can I select the option everytime. I do power off all my equipment at night or when not is use, does that erase the previous settings?
With a machine that is tuned and working correctly, you should not require to re-home between tool change. You only reset Z to a known height.
Make sure when changing the bit the motors are locked. There will be icons in the lower right corner when you are about to start the carve before you change the bits.
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If you feel like the Xcarriage slipped during a bit change. If you change the DIP switch and ensure the motors are locked, you shouldn’t have to rehome but if something did happen, that’s the solution.
That is correct.
If you home the machine and have a way to do a repeatable X/Y position EVERY time, then yes you could do that. Search the forum for “bump stop” for more information. I did exactly that with a workholding fixture that I made for some signs I was doing dozens of. Just had to power up, home the machine, and start carving!
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Life saver dude!!! The code works perfectly, I work in IT and cant for the life of me figure out why I didn’t think of looking up the code for this thing. Guess I am just so enthralled with actually seeing it carve!!! Just a kid in a candy store I tell you. So cool.
Thanks again.
Home position is not necessarily the same as work zero.
Learn g28 and g30 in combination with bump stop.
