First carve issues

[JeffHunt]

Hi, I finished assembly recently and am troubleshooting some last issues.

1. When I open easel and hit homing sequence the router goes up the z axis and doesn’t stop.

2. It also seems all my axis movements are not moving smoothly. I think they are bound up in places, what is the best method to get these right?

3. Last, I was told maybe the z axis needs the motor power adjusted as they are struggling to move the router up, how do I do this?

[RobertA_Rieke]

Congrats, welcome to the cool club! Here’s some possible help:

1. Did you verify the z-axis homing switch is normally open and closes? If so, is the spindle mount fully pressing the switch enough to close the contact?

2 and 3) It takes a little adjustment of the belts, V-wheels, and stepper motor potentiometers to get it dialed in and get smooth operation. When something is preventing smooth movement (such as tight V-wheels), it leads to what we’ve called “lost steps”. Here’s two good forum threads you can use to help get the V-wheels, belt, and potentiometers dialed in. The second has a video I made that shows how to adjust the potentiometers to boost power to the steppers:

[Guide] Offset cutting, Lost steps, Positioning errors, etc

Positioning Errors One of the most asked about troubleshooting problems with a new X-carve is positioning errors. Almost all positioning errors are corrected by adjusting the various parts of the machine. Very few of the problems are actually due to failing components. The X-carve is a very flexible machine and so one answer cannot fit all situations. Each person will use their machine in a different way which makes it difficult to precisely quantify each adjustment. Positioning errors are alm…

X-Carve Maintenance/Troubleshooting Videos - Add Your Own!

There are a lot of repeated questions and answers on here, and some good videos that explain everything. I’ve got 2 maintenance and one X-axis stiffening video that I made that may help with some X-Carve maintenance and troubleshooting. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, videos have got to be worth a few more. If you’ve got a video, or like a video someone else has, put it up on here. Let’s make a collection that will be easy to reference for various X-Carve users!