The Z problem is especially devilish, just for that reason. Everything looks great right up until the Z axis does not retract when it is told to. I would check my pulleys first to be sure the set screws are tight and the pulley does not slip any. If your motor has a flat spot on the shaft be sure one of the set screws is tightened over that flat spot.
You can also turn off all the power and twist the top of the threaded rod with your fingers, it should spin easily for the full travel of the Z axis. If there are tight spots you need to try and figure out what is causing them. You can spray the threaded rod with some dry lubricant that contains PTFE and that will help it greatly.
The other thing you can do is dry run your project that failed. Just take the bit out of the spindle and raise the spindle high enough so that will not hit the work or clamps and with the spindle power off run the gcode and see if it is moving correctly. Without any load on the motors I bet it works great.
As for the crazy switch getting flipped, when the Z is embedded in the material the X and Y will both start to loose lots of steps and then life is truly bad.
Hi Allen - The belts are quite taught, may too much so? I can always loosen them if you think that might help. I can run the z-axis by hand from top to bottom just fine and Iām not noticing any tight spots. I certainly could do a dry run, but thatās going to involve me sitting in front of the machine for quite a bit and Iām not sure Iād catch the ābadā moves if itās not actually cutting on something.
ok i dont have an xcarve but i do however have a piranha. i was told by the guy teaching me that the stepper motors can catch on to the rf signals that wireless things put out. ie mouses keyboards remotes that sort. ive had this problem once with mine i had to unplug my wireless mouse out of my laptop
Hi Robert - I have not tried running through Easel in awhile. Maybe thatās a good idea! The thing I didnāt like about Easel early on is that it wanted to set home points differently than I had set when I created the file. Maybe I just need to let Easel take control and see what happens. Btw - I am not using a spindle. I am using the Dewalt 611, less than three weeks old.
Allen - I did notice after running the z-axis by hand two or three times that it gets a bit more difficult to turn as I near the top of the axis. Almost imperceptible, but Iām quite sure I noticed it. But the spacing between the delrin nut and the mounting plate behind it stays constant the entire length of the z-axis, so I donāt think Iām dealing with a bent z-axis rod.
Michael - No wireless device near the x-carve with the exception of the wifi connection on my laptop, which is currently about 3-4 feet away from the controller and x-carve.
I do not have any dust controls outside of me taking the shop vac to it every 15 minutes or so during carving. Iāve only had it up and running a week or so, but I know dust control is something Iām going to need to invest in soon.
This morning (after the family wakes up, wife would kill me if I cranked it on now) Iām going to give a go at a simple short carve on MDF (of my four previously successful carves, 3 were on MDF and one on pine). If all works out well there, Iāll give a try at another big project, this time using Easel to import it instead of UGS.
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Hi Phil - When I first got the machine up and running I tried importing through Easel, I had problems. The first problem I had was that connection between Easel and my computer was problematic (think I got that fixed, it was likely an XP problem). The one time I did get a project imported it went all wacky and dug in so deep on the first pass it launched my piece of wood across the garage (think that was a mm vs inches issue that is now also solved). Now I have a new Window 10 laptop dedicated to x-carve, but since I got it Iāve only been using UGS because it seemed far simpler than messing around with Easel. But Iām going to give Easel another go today to see what happens.
yes what software do you use from design to final carving?
Do you have pictures of the objects you are trying to cut? Or screenshots of the 3D model?
Your problem rings a bell with me, but before I say my theory, i want to be sure its the same problem I faced.
Well, I just ran a full roughing carve successfully by importing through Easel (albeit a much shorter one than I was trying before). I may have inadvertently discovered what the problem was. When setting up my x-carve through Easel, everything worked fine. But when I imported my model and then went to carve, Easel said it couldnāt find my machine. This happened two or three times in a row and I was about to lose my mind and go back to UGS. Thatās when I accidently bumped the USB cord where it plugged in to my computer. Suddenly Easel found my machine. I jiggled the cord a little bit and the connection dropped again. I went and grabbed a different USB cord I had and everything sprung to life just fine and the carve ran the full program without a glitch. So, unless I have another problem with a future carve, I think we can chalk this one up to a crappy USB cord that came with my X-Carve.
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