Acme screws and easel

I have a 1500 x 1500 workbee with acme screw drive and an x-carve controller and Easel software.
I can use some advice on getting it set up. It’s all assembled and x-carve controller and easel all loaded.
This seem to check good. When carving words the letters run together.
Example: FUN= “F” is okay…“U” starts at the end of the “F” legs. The “N” starts on the right side of the “U”.
Anyone else ever have this?
Any advice? Any suggestion? Thanks

You should go ask the manufacturer of the workbee this question.

Sounds like you are missing steps (steppers stalling intermittently)
Did you when carving hear a pronounced, occational “grinding” noise or no such noise?

What are your current GRBL parameters?

Hello,
X-$100=200
Y-$101=200
Z-$102=53.7
I’m not at the machine today and thats what I remember.
As for the noise. I dont think there was any grinding that I noticed.
Before we stopped yesterday we attempted one final test again at the word “Fun”. We observed the gantry travel out of square. We stopped the test and took measurements. The gantry was 3/8 inch out of square. We disconnected the Y-axis motors and aligned the gantry back to exact matching measurements. We jogged the Y-axis short amounts in both directions and it went out of square each time. We re-squared the gantry and stopped everything and until we got some help.
I hope I provided info the help.
Thank you for your interest.
Don and Theresa

Those are only a few of your GRBL parameters and those only apply to step/mm (scaling).
We also need to know your $110-112 and $120-122 values.

Are all axis scaling properly? 1" command = 1" travel?

Hello Again,
Sorry for the late reply, I was held late at work.
When everything was set up we tested the scaling.
We used metric scale and X, Y, and Z were spot on.

The values you asked about are as follows:

$110=8000.000
$111=8000.000
$112=500.000

$120=500.00
$121=500.00
$122=50.00

The laptop we use is a new Dell with Google Chrome and is used only for the machine.
Today is the first time I scrolled past the first list and saw there are two others that have the same numbers.

The steppers we are suing are Nema 23 2.4.

I was wondering if it would be beneficial for us to scrub the easel program and reload it.
If there is any further information you require please let me know and I will provide it asap.
Thank in advance,
Don and Theresa

For trouble shooting purposes change these settings to:
$110=2500
$111=2500
$120=250
$121=250

You can change these settings by opening up Easel and press CTRL+SHIFT+D to open Machine Inspector. In the Console text window write $110=2500 and press Enter. Repeat for next value.

I understand. I will apply these changes tomorrow afternoon after I leave work. I will attempt the same word “fun” for comparison and report the results back to you.
Thank you for this incredible customer service!

Don and Theresa

You’re welcome :slight_smile:
This is a Community-driver forum BTW, some of us dont even own an Xcarve :wink:

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HEY THERE!!! Sorry for late reply again been busy at work.
We applied the numbers as you suggested.
We tested a carve using the same word “Fun”.
IT WAS AMAZING…IT WORKS LIKE A DREAM !!!
Motors a super quiet and the ACCURACY IS SPOT ON.
I CANT SAY THANK YOU ENOUGH!!! You totally saved us after many many of failed attempts and failures.
WE ARE SO EXCITED TO GET CARVING!!! THANK YOU AGAIN!!

Glad it worked :slight_smile:

Note that the values proposed by me is not the ideal values, just a starting point.
The default Xcarve values are what you reported initially but those require belts. Belts as-is provide a longer travel per stepper revolution and the steppers are naturally RPM-limited. Also stepper torque drop at higher RPM and eventually reach “zero”.

So max RPM = larger rapid rate with belts compared to screws.
This in turn made your steppers stall out because they were trying to use a RPM they were not capable of delivering.

Dialing back those values placed you in a more realistic range, but can later be explored and further optimized :slight_smile: But your cutting rates will most likely not exceed these lower max rapids so the impact is negligeble :slight_smile:

$110 = max speed for X-axis
$111 = max speed for Y-axis
$120 = Acceleration rate X-axis
$121 = Acceleration rate for Y-axis

Welcome to the world of CNC´ing :smiley:

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Sounds like your just using a larger bit then what you told the machine it was.