HELP!!! My fantastic carving machine went from being great a few days ago to being a piece of junk now! It will chew up letters (the letter ‘P’ for example) and it will not maintain orientation, by that I mean it will carve words uneven across the line of text. All I did different was tighten the straps and adjust my stepper motor current. After that it started screwing up my carving. So I loosened the straps some and lowered the motor current another 1/8th turn. This did not help anything. I am at a loss as to why my machine has gone bonkers on me? As it sits, it is just a 1400 dollar piece of junk! I can move it manually and it seems to move freely and smoothly, but while carving it seems to want to chatter and seem to be binding while carving. Any idea’s out there?
It sounds like a belt tension/current issue. There’s a fine line there. Are your letters ending up closer together than they are supposed to be?
They were before I increased the motor voltage, then I carved several plaques with everything looking real nice, even spaced letter’s and all that. Very pleased with the outcome. Then I started noticing things weren’t looking so good anymore, that’s when I decided to tighten up on the belts (they were a little on the loose side or so I thought) and then carving got worse. Now it just chews up letters and won’t carve a straight line as if it is having trouble moving in the x/y axis. I am in process of uploading a short video and you can see what I am talking about.
Here is the video I just made trying to explain my delima!
What software are you using? I’d also check your V-Wheels, when I first put my machine together I had tightened them way too much. The inverse could also be true; v-wheels being too loose.
Messing with the current can also have adverse affects, if it was working fine where they were set prior to the issue, I’d put them back the the original position so you can rule one thing out. I’d look up the proper procedure to adjusting those potentiometers, I’m positive I saw an article posted on here some where.
Software = easel, V-wheels are fine, have checked them and they are ok, it wasn’t working fine until I adjusted the stepper motor current, yes I posted an article with a link to adjusting stepper motor voltage.
PROBLEM SOLVED! 
My x-carve is back to it’s good old self again! I discovered that my eccentric nuts ( not concentric as I stated) on the ‘x’ and ‘y’ axis had tighten themselves up so tight that it was inhibiting the function of these axis. Once I re-adjusted the nuts correctly the x-carve was back to it’s normal functioning. Man am I a happy dude. So if you are experiencing a simular situation as I was, check those eccentric nuts! Remember, I’m still learning about these machines!
Here’s my finished product!