CNC4newbies having trouble installing

I am having trouble getting the x-carve motor to fit in the coupler that came with it. Also, are there instruction for where you are supposed to you the screws that came with it?

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He’s installing an aftermarket Z axis.

Can you describe the fit issue a bit more? Is it not going in or bottoming out or ???

Make sure you loosen the set screws in the coupler enough to let the motor shaft go in. On my linear Z, the shaft was a bit snug and needed some slight jiggling to go in.

I ended up figuring it out. I have to put more force than I expected to get the coupler on (This may have had to do with having to cut the pulley off since none of the other methods would make it budge.Also, I figured out the screws by trial and error. Hopefully, I have the limit switch installed correctly,

Thanks for the help.

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Oops, missed that one :slight_smile: Sorry.

Remember to flip the red and blue wires if you’re switching from the default Z, with belt, to direct connection to the acme screw via coupler…

Is that something I could also do in grbl without modifying the wiring. I am using the wiring that came with the x-carve that has the connector. I would rather avoid cutting and taping if I can.

Yes, you can swap rotation through software. You also dont have to swap wires at the motor end either, any exposed position of the wire can be used :slight_smile:

Yes the wires can be switched at the controller easily with no cutting or splicing.

Used Easel to reverse the travel of the axis. What $102 did you end up using? This one has been kicking my butt. My original one was 186.936. I switched UGS to mm and told it to job 1mm, did the stepper spreadsheet on Phil’s website and ended up having to panic switch it off as it tried to drill to China. Got it working in mm mode and switched UGS to inches and it basically did it again. I gave up and was just trying to make it move 1" while in inch mode in UGS. I ended up with a $102 value of about 52. Did a test carve of a square 1/16", 1/8" and 1/4" deep. They all came up about .019 shallow on all of them. Recalibrated my Triquetra touch plate (it’s at .844" now), thought that was the difference. Redid the test… it was shallower. Ended up testing the 1" move again and added a few to $102. Now, I’m about .004 off now and can’t determine if it’s my micrometer or if I still need to adjust $102.

I followed the thread that talks about changing 4 things with this upgrade. One thing I notice is when it slews up and down, it does fine, but when it is executing a tool path, it slows down and makes a vibrating noise as it slows down at about the top of the work - very much like homing or running touch plate macro . It’s not with the position as it doesn’t do it when I manually move the Z axis.

My firmware

$0 = 10 (Step pulse time, microseconds)
$1 = 0 (Step idle delay, milliseconds)
$2 = 0 (Step pulse invert, mask)
$3 = 7 (Step direction invert, mask)
$4 = 0 (Invert step enable pin, boolean)
$5 = 0 (Invert limit pins, boolean)
$6 = 0 (Invert probe pin, boolean)
$10 = 115 (Status report options, mask)
$11 = 0.020 (Junction deviation, millimeters)
$12 = 0.002 (Arc tolerance, millimeters)
$13 = 0 (Report in inches, boolean)
$20 = 0 (Soft limits enable, boolean)
$21 = 0 (Hard limits enable, boolean)
$22 = 1 (Homing cycle enable, boolean)
$23 = 3 (Homing direction invert, mask)
$24 = 25.000 (Homing locate feed rate, mm/min)
$25 = 750.000 (Homing search seek rate, mm/min)
$26 = 250 (Homing switch debounce delay, milliseconds)
$27 = 1.000 (Homing switch pull-off distance, millimeters)
$30 = 1 (Maximum spindle speed, RPM)
$31 = 0 (Minimum spindle speed, RPM)
$32 = 0 (Laser-mode enable, boolean)
$100 = 40.000 (X-axis travel resolution, step/mm)
$101 = 40.000 (Y-axis travel resolution, step/mm)
$102 = 51.000 (Z-axis travel resolution, step/mm)
$110 = 8000.000 (X-axis maximum rate, mm/min)
$111 = 8000.000 (Y-axis maximum rate, mm/min)
$112 = 700.000 (Z-axis maximum rate, mm/min)
$120 = 500.000 (X-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2)
$121 = 500.000 (Y-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2)
$122 = 750.000 (Z-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2)
$130 = 790.000 (X-axis maximum travel, millimeters)
$131 = 790.000 (Y-axis maximum travel, millimeters)
$132 = 100.000 (Z-axis maximum travel, millimeters)

What plunge rate are you using? That’s probably what’s causing it. As long as your max rate is higher, you can use a higher plunge rate and it should be fine.

My linear Z axis had a horrible resonance at like 2-4 ipm with the 2X microstepping. I ended up going to 4X microstepping to smooth it out.

Also you can up your max rate quite a bit. You should be able to get like 70 ipm. My max rate is 2000 mm/min.

If I change my gshield to 4x micro stepping, will I have to change my $102 value?

Could be my plunge rate since I’ve always been real conservative there .

Is this how you change to 4x micro stepping? Using grblShield · synthetos/grblShield Wiki · GitHub

It looks like the same board. What benefits would I derive from doing so? N/m found the discussion. :slight_smile:

Yes. You multiply it by 2.

Kinda what I thought. My plunge rate was 10 on my carve, so that is probably where the noise came from.

I think I know what I did wrong yesterday… when I was looking at the mm’s on my ruler… I was moving it from one big bar on my ruler to the next (like how inches are marked), which is not 1 mm, but 10. So I had it amped up 10x times which makes since I had it around 500.