Hello all,
I hope there are some folks still working and familiar with the Carvey generation of Inventables machines active on this forum. I help run a makerspace in Providence, RI and we received two Carvey by donation.
I set one up and found that it worked great up until I ran a file and walked away from it, only to discover after that the collet nut had run up against a clamp and threw off the homing by a mile.
I re-homed in the Machine Inspector but I still have an issue with the Z axis. The machine homes to X and Y onto the Smart Clamp button just fine - but when the machine homes before carving, instead of tapping the smart clamp to find center, it continues downwards as if no signal was sent from the smart clamp to the spindle to begin to carve.
It was not clarified in the Inventables re-homing guide if the Smart Clamp should be flush against the wasteboard - I had a .75 MDF panel clamped when I home initially. Also, it was not said whether the bit should be in contact with the button when the G53 G0 Z-1 and G28.1 command are run.
Any help would be majorly appreciated. We start our high school design and build programs next month, so I’m hoping to figure everything out before then.
Best,
Dan M.
Hoping @NeilFerreri1 might still be around. If I remember correctly they had some pretty good knowledge regarding the Carvey series machines.
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@DanMitrovic It’s not clear what your issue is from your description.
Homing the machine moves the Z, X&Y axes to their limit switches and then backs off a small amount. When you start the job, assuming you’re using Easel, the Carvey will probe the smart clamp to determine the location of the top of your stock.
Are you saying that the machine homed and probed successfully but then plunged into your stock? Or is there an issue with homing or probing?
Just to clarify, are you using Easel?
Hi Neil, thank you for your reply! Your advice to past Carvey forum posts was what I was initially reading in trying to figure this out.
I am using Easel here.
To clarify, I homed the machine using Machine Inspector, and when the home command was run, the machine referenced to the smart clamp.
The problem is the probing of the smart clamp during the start of a job, as you described.
When the spindle is lowering to “tap” the probe button on the smart clamp, instead of backing off to start the job after touching the button, the spindle continues moving down and pressing against the smart clamp.
The obvious problem seems to be that the smart clamp button is not receiving a signal once the bit makes contact to tell the spindle to stop descending and start the cut? Or that the “home” for z is not properly aligned to the clamp? Basically trying to diagnose if its a mechnical problem or a G-code problem.
Let me know your thoughts and thanks for your help! I will be away until the end of next week and busy teaching classes most days but will try some problem solving again soon afterwards.
best,
Dan M.
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Hey Dan,
That sounds like it’s most likely (like 99%) an issue with the button on the smart clamp. If you disassemble the clamp, you’ll find a simple PCB with the button. First thing would be to check if there are any glaring issues with that.
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