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Have had the XCarve 1000mm with the Xcontroler for a couple of months now. I have started having inconsistent cutting depths, which seems to occur when I try to carve a detailed project. I didn’t notice the inconsistent cuts until recent. I am tracing images in Inkscape and importing them into Easel to carve. For instance, I have carved a LE badge and it turned out fine. When I tried to carve it a second time, a portion of it didn’t cut to the right depth; it was very shallow in one area. When I tried to cut it again, it cut the previous shallow area fine but was shallow in another part of the project. Its the same badge that I am cutting, but the results seem different each time. I have read through different posts and haven’t seen this particular problem. With each project it seems like a roll of the dice if it will come out the same way each time. I have checked my belts, the wood is level/flat, z is square, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Im obviously a new guy here and am still learning the lingo on the internal settings and carving in general. Thanks
Skimmed the waste board and all look good. Although the X and Y deviated off the waste board lines while traversing across the board. So I need to get that squared up. I did find an old post at below link by Dave Brookes that matches my same problem, as I have had this happen with lettering as well.
Dave posted the below remedy:
“Anyway, late yesterday I put the
meter on the pots and found that the Y & Z axis motors were way out of
whack. Now with those two running smoothly, the spindle sounds a lot better and
is carving at a steady depth. I spent over 20 years working on heavy equipment
so this remedy confuses me, but it worked!! Ockham’s razor. So thank you for
that video on adjusting voltage to the stepper motors.”
Meter = Voltmeter, analoge or digital
Pots = potmeter, a “volume knob” on an electronic device such as a stepper motor driver (current limiter)
Pots are the blue squared boxes seen here, but depending on what kind of board you have these might look differently, but with a dial face showing:
Putting the meter on = putting your negative meter probe to any place that has GND (Ground)
You put the positive lead on the positive voltage side of the pot, and you should get a low voltage reading (less than 1V)
That is your Vref voltage and from that can compute the current limit. The scaling factor vary between different type of drivers.
Inconsistent depth can be several things, slack, a poor wire connection, undersized motor, acceleration settings set to high, wavy cut surface board, under-limited driver etc…Not so easy to say without a bit more information.
Hey Sean, I bought a 1" flat bit and skimmed my waste board to ensure it was truly flat. Also planning the wood has helped with this issue. For me, it boiled down to my wasteboard not being perfectly flat and the wood I was using was not perfectly flat either. For the most part, when cutting such fine details, the slightest imperfection in the wood will cause these issues.
I found the best way to completely eliminate this issue is to strap down your piece of wood that you are carving and skim it. This will ensure the surface is completely level with your machine. Hope that all makes sense…
