A few issues with x-carve looking for help

A few issues I’m having as of late.

  1. The picture of the x carriage, the top left v-wheel in the pic (non eccentric nut) spins freely accept for when it gets close to the ends of the x axis’s. All other wheel are tight and i can’t really spin them .
    Im under the assumption this may be a part of my issue but maybe not. either way it needs to be fixed yes? how do i go about doing that efficiently…loosen all wheels and re tighten all wheels?

  2. In the other pictures i recently been having problems with these ledges or offset cuts when there is not supposed to be any, These are simple letters from easel and it seems to have issues lately. It usually happens on a curve or by a curve where the machine will all of a sudden stop for a mili second while on its curve or turn and move off of its path (usually traveling the y axis ) then start back on its intended path resulting in a ledge. What is going on? This work is close to the edge of the work area…so the belts are obviously the tightest there…

Been having issues with small circles too not being 100 round. gotten better with belt tightening at first and now having different issues. Circles are more accurate but now its stepping off its path.

Belts, recently tightened them about a week ago due to the x carriage being at 2 lbs and the y axis being 4.5. Tightened all belts to around 5.5 lbs. (fish scale 1" method) Belts to tight?

Pots were set when i built it with a meter to a specified reading that the forum seemed to all free on.
(haven’t checked them since)

Any help is appreciated , I have been looking on the forums and I’m sure someone has had my problem but every search word i use doesn’t seem to lend me the answers or seem to get me close.

Rory



First; Make sure you followed this link to see if you miss something.

Second; check to see if your wheel spacers are installed correctly, maybe V surfaces are not sitting to maker slide correctly.
Third; turn your machine off, bring your X axis all the way to the edge which you think it’s getting tighter. Loose four screws holding maker slides, check your V Wheels if they’re free to spin. Tight those screws back again, adjust your wheels evenly (small amount per eccentric at a time).
Now push your X axis to center, are your wheels getting looser ?, then you need stiffness mode to make two maker slide straight enough.

The X axis movement is very important for circles and arcs.
Making belt tensions too tight doesn’t give you anything but problems. Just needs to be tight enough not to jump teeth, and Y axis belts must be even on both side.

Ok,

So i set all tension on the belts to 3.5lbs. tight but not super tight. I then checked my pots and vref still around 1.6 for all ran them and for awhile and none of them seemed to stutter or overload. I then noticed a faint knocking sound in one of the y axis motors. It took me a minute but i narrowed it down to the right y axis motor. its like a clicking sound and when i place my finger on the pulley i can feel the audible click also. Any thoughts?

I then checked the wheels on the gantry. When its all the way in the home position front left corner. all the wheels are tight and can’t really be moved with one finger but with two you can move them. As i send the gantry across i can watch the one wheel no longer spin and its almost as if it looses connection with the x axis. All other wheels move in synch.

Next i decided to try simple shapes and this is what I’m getting. What is going on?



That “squished circle” shape is usually cased by one axis not moving properly. (In 3d printers is a symptom of a loose belt.)
A lot of different things can cause this. Belts are just the most likely suspect.
Because your belts are all tight I would check your motor pulley set screws. Make sure they are tight and held in place with some locktight.

My thought is if one pulley set screw is just a little loose (x axis probably) then it will slip just a bit when it first starts moving in a direction, resulting in the shorter travel distortion you are seeing in your basic shapes.

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Checked all my set screws and they were all tight. It’s funny cause it’s slowly been getting bad. I will do the fixes to the x carriage that the others have stated to do to fix the v wheel problem. … anyone have an idea why one of my y axis motors seems to have a clicking noise that comes from the pulley? While it’s moving I placed my finger on the pulley as it rolled and when it clicked I felt it. Seems to be rolling fine and nothing in the belt or on maker slide… any concern there?

Uploading…

I had a similar issue. Quality getting worse and worse. It turns out for me, the hole for the eccentric nut on the Z axis was getting stretched out, causing the z axis to shift under load.

So something may be wearing out. I would just keep checking the v wheels, it could be a bearing issue?

The motor should not be “clicking”, does it do it under no load? I would consider replacing the motor just to be sure.