Hello all, I’m a newbie to cnc routing, i got my x-carve in March of this year and have cruised the forum daily. My problems are 1. I wired up the Amazon relay today and my Dewalt runs all the time during the setup i noticed the relay clicks in as soon as i power up the machine. During setup it tells you to press a button to power on the spindle and press again to power off the spindle. My Dewalt runs all the time unless I cut it off with the switch on the router.I ran the yellow and black wire to the pins on the arduino From right to left the black wire is on the second pin and the yellow on the 5th pin, i ran it to the plug next to the spindle switch, I ran 2 wires from the 4 hole plug back to the relay plug. Any ideas? 2. I’m trying to make a sacrificial waste board and i cannot get easel to space the holes 75 mm on center with a grid of 10 by 10 holes. My board is 28 inches wide and 29 inches deep and 1/2 inch thick. I’ve been working on this all day of and on. Do I have to move each row of holes by hand in the drawing to get them exactly right? I’m really impressed with the knowledge on this board and how willingly it is shared. You guys rock! Thanks greg
I can’t look at the wiring right now, but I can help you out with the wasteboard holes. First, you’ve got to make sure your stepper motors are calibrated. It doesn’t do any good to tell them to move the bit over by X distance if it really moves Y distance.
As for spacing the holes, you can use the replicator app in Easel. Just make sure you tell it to make the spacing 75mm-holesize. As in, if you choose to make an 8mm hole you would want to tell it to put a 67mm spacing between holes.
You can find videos I made on stepper calibration and sacrificial wasteboards by going to this forum: X-Carve Maintenance/Troubleshooting Videos - Add Your Own!
Thank you Sir! I got the waste board idea from watching your video. I’ll check my steppers tonight. Keep up the good work and keep the videos coming
I calibrated my steppers using Charlie Thomas’ video, but I’ll check again just to be sure. Question, when you set up easel to drill the holes, did you set it to drill outside, inside or on the line?
I remember that I had problems when I tried to cut my wasteboard using an Easel project that someone had posted, for me the holes were way too big.
The holes need to be set to cut inside the line.
As for the wiring, this is the thread I used.
Good luck.
-Kelly
Inside the hole, thanks a lot! I’ll check out the thread on wiring tonight. Thanks again greg
I either set it to cut inside the line or to just cut them as pockets. Can’t remember which one, but pocket/fill will do inside the line too.
Thanks, I’ll check easel tonight and see what I set it do.
I had no luck using the Spindle PWM circuit to drive a SS Relay, I think (on mine at least) the SSR load isn’t enough and the voltage stays high (~24VDC) on the circuit under so little load (~3mA). I ended up just using the Arduino output (the yellow and black wire) directly to activate the SSR and its been working great (for last several months). My SSR is 40A and the trigger is 3-30VDC something like that. I use UGS and just have to set the RPM over 12500 to get the arduino to do the full 5v out. I think there is a setting somewhere you can change to make it pure on or off, but its easy enough as is, works with Easel too.
you can confirm the arduino output is working using a multi meter should see 0-5VDC, spindle off or on. the test setup on easel turns the spindle on,… off,… on,… off…
kind of hard to see in the pic but I just used the phoenix plug as a terminal to join a shielded extension wire to the stock black and yellow spindle out wires.
sorry so long winded
Gary
shop vac and router plugged into the relay controlled outlet, the right side. the left outlets are always on, I use that for the laptop PSU.
Waste board heaven now, i used your numbers 8 mm holes spaced 67 mm apart everything lined up perfectly. I’m going to check my steppers and make sure they are ok then Sat am screw it down and drill the holes. Thanks for your help.
greg
That’s great! Can’t wait to see what it looks like, maybe without the “design features” that mine has. 
Thanks, I’m sure mine will have some "design features " all its own lol! Gotta figure out how to get it all lined up to drill, then a pocket cut to flatten it out.
Thanks
Greg
I think I drilled the first hole by hand so I could center a bit on the hole by eye. If you put screws in the cutting area to hold it down, make sure you recess them as much as you can so they don’t get hit by a bit.
I checked my spindle to see if it was perpendicular to the waste board and it’s tilted down about .010 of an inch. I watched your video where you explained the saw tooth pattern when you were flattening yours. Is this .010 going to give the same results and should I be worried about it?
Not sure what you mean by tilted down .010", is that the total height of the sawtooth?
If you’re going to be carving pockets, you will want to minimize the out-of-square as much as possible. If it’s only a little out-of-square you won’t be able to tell with small bits, but larger bits (especially flat bits) will leave a little bit of sawtooth pattern on the bottom.
Sorry, I mean the router bit is tilted. 010 towards the rear of the machine. It’s not pointed straight down.
You should be able to find a way to shim it out a little bit at the bottom, I used strips of business cards to shim mine (at the top). You may only need 1 strip, maybe 2.
There again Robert to the rescue! It took 2 strips of business card and a thin sheet of paper to square it up. I checked my x and y axis steppers and they are moving exactly the amount on mm I put in. Thank you so much! Now on to the router problem with the auto on/off. I set easel up with the automatic setting, chose other on the spindle type and set speed at 20000. Still doesn’t work as soon as I power up the power supply the relay pulls in and the Dewalt comes on. Time for more research
I have it plugged in to the normally off side. Problem is as soon as I cut on the power supply the relay pulls in. I checked and there’s 24 volts to the relay as soon as I turn it on. I’ll try your commands tonight. Thank you sir.
Greg
Ummm, what’s a PWM?