I can’t get Easel to allow Y-axis travel beyond about 775mm. I need at least 787mm for the musical instruments I make. I have soft limits set, but they are beyond the 787mm I need (793mm). Does Easel (or the firmware) have limits built in? If so, can they be altered?
Check the below GRBL settings.
$130, $131, $132 – [X,Y,Z] Max travel, mm
This sets the maximum travel from end to end for each axis in mm. This is only useful if you have soft limits (and homing) enabled, as this is only used by Grbl’s soft limit feature to check if you have exceeded your machine limits with a motion command.
Also, check your machine footprint in Easel.
My $131=793, so that shouldn’t be the issue. Not exactly sure what the “machine footprint” is, so maybe that’s my problem. I did select the 1000 x 1000 machine size.
Can you set your project on an angle, this may give you the distance needed.
I do multiples at one time, so putting them on an angle doesn’t really work. The machine travel is advertised as 800mm, so I am hoping there is a way to get at least 787mm.
What do you mean by Easel won’t “allow” travel beyond 775mm. Are you jogging and it throws an alarm state?
Mine is carving Y800 - X795 mm. Play with your XY homing switch location. You have too much space between bump stop and Switch stop.Easy to align.
Thanks Alan, I should have seen that when I mounted my Suckit, I had to move the stop so it didn’t hit the end plate. I guess I will have to carve a pretty big notch out of the end plate to allow the Suckit to pass by. It does look like I will be able to get what I need and perhaps the full 800mm.
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It would throw an alarm and stop in mid carve.
Do you need the full X as well? If not, you could move your X homing switch in to allow for the dust boot. Better yet, set up to home in the back right, grbl’s default.
Good suggestion Neil, but I do need all the real estate I can get in the X-axis as well. I am going to try removing the Suckit and see if I actually get more Y travel. The more I think about it, I don’t see how I will since the machine doesn’t know where my homing position is relative to the rail. I will do some tests and report back.
If you can relocate your Y-homing to the back of the machine, I think you’ll gain all of that space back. You’ll just have to carefully set your Work Zero.
I spent the morning trying a variety of things and it turned out that the max. travel was independent of the homing location. So there was no benefit to relocating the homing switch stop. In the end, I got the travel I needed by turning off the soft limits. I clearly don’t fully understand how the soft limits work. I had adequate travel on paper, but the way they interacted with Easel limited travel more than they should have. It was almost as if they take into account the bit diameter and reduce the travel by that amount. In my case, I was surfacing a vacuum table with a 1.0" diameter cutter so the resultant loss of travel was significant.
Thanks for all the suggestions that helped me work through this. Definitely a learning experience.
You can adjust you soft limits. Set your home, jog till it just about hits and change you setting to that number.
Thanks David, I will give that a try.