Cannot get my X-Carve started!

Maybe there is an Easel issue. Do you have Universal G-code sender?

haven’t gotten that far

Are you using a laptop? Sometimes power management gets in the way.

The three green LEDs are hooked up to one of the motor windings for each stepper driver chip. During normal operation they will turn on and off.

hold on, got to the test carve page, a personal best…

ok, so now the machine is sorta responsive. seems to try to do what i’m teling it to do when trying to put it in home position. but the motors seem to be struggling.

too tight on the lets?

You can either use the serial monitor (close down Easel) or the Machine Inspector, but get me the $$ output again now that you have run setup and post it here.

Then read through this:

Grbl 0.9j [’$’ for help]
$0=10 (step pulse, usec)
$1=255 (step idle delay, msec)
$2=0 (step port invert mask:00000000)
$3=3 (dir port invert mask:00000011)
$4=0 (step enable invert, bool)
$5=0 (limit pins invert, bool)
$6=0 (probe pin invert, bool)
$10=3 (status report mask:00000011)
$11=0.020 (junction deviation, mm)
$12=0.002 (arc tolerance, mm)
$13=0 (report inches, bool)
$20=0 (soft limits, bool)
$21=0 (hard limits, bool)
$22=0 (homing cycle, bool)
$23=3 (homing dir invert mask:00000011)
$24=25.000 (homing feed, mm/min)
$25=750.000 (homing seek, mm/min)
$26=250 (homing debounce, msec)
$27=1.000 (homing pull-off, mm)
$100=40.000 (x, step/mm)
$101=40.000 (y, step/mm)
$102=320.000 (z, step/mm)
$110=8000.000 (x max rate, mm/min)
$111=8000.000 (y max rate, mm/min)
$112=500.000 (z max rate, mm/min)
$120=500.000 (x accel, mm/sec^2)
$121=500.000 (y accel, mm/sec^2)
$122=50.000 (z accel, mm/sec^2)
$130=290.000 (x max travel, mm)
$131=290.000 (y max travel, mm)
$132=100.000 (z max travel, mm)
ok

so how do i close the machine down for now without having to do all this all over again tomorrow?

You should be ok now. Turn off the 24 volt power supply first and the unplug the USB cable (or shutdown the computer).

When you start back up boot up the computer first (and if you unplugged the USB cable plug it back in) and then turn on the 24 volt power supply.

Just a couple of quick questions before you go:

Do you have the homing switches installed? Is your machine a 500mm or 1000mm?

no homing switches and i have the 500mm kit

Ok, you’re set up. Looks like now you just have to do the fine tuning.

Thank you so much, larry. I cannot even begin to tell how eleven I am that this part is (hopefully stays) finished.

And yeah, looks like all I need to do is tweak the belts

Great. If anything else comes up just jump back in here. Lots of folks on here to help out.

2 Likes

just an update: software is still good to go. connects to easel right away. still cannot get the axis to run smoothly. i adjusted the belt, didn’t seem to do anything. Z runs fine 90% of the time, X goes a few steps then bogs down. Y has yet to run on its own withot a little constant gentle pressure

The pots? Are you refering to the potentiometers? If so, no. I haven’t touched them.

If I can add my 2 cents worth. My Y carriage was stopping and sounding like it was grinding. I loosened up the two centric nuts that tighten or loosen the tightness of the wheels against the frame work (brain freeze of actual name) this allowed my carriage to move properly. They were to tight and kept my carriage from moving like it should.

how can I see if that’s the problem? I can’t loosen the nuts and move the carriage by hand because that causes the stepper motors to generate power and could cause damage to the gshield

The drivers can handle some back current. As long as you aren’t rapidly zipping the steppers around by hand, you should be fine. Just go slowly with it.

If you’re really concerned, disconnect the steppers from the terminal block or control board before moving.

OK. So should I try the eccentric nuts or the potentiometer adjustment first?

I am sure by now you have tried several things. If not try the wheels first. It is so much easier to start with that. Do not mess with things that may cause more problems in the long run. Electric / electronic items can cause other problems. Start with mechanical things first.