Would like to see a home button added to "setting XY" when prepping to carve

I would really like to see a home button on the XY selection section of the carving steps. This would allow me to set the machine back to the same zero every time, without having to exit the carve process and start all over.

I use an L bracket to set my materials at the same location every time. Since I do this, I have inside corner of the L bracket to be my home position using the homing switches. When doing a carve, I will always start from this position.

When just using a single bit for the carve, I can start the cut from that position without much issue. This is because I insert the bit, rehome the machine, and then hit the carve button. I will then move it 20mm right and 20mm up, do the z probe, and then go back 20 left and 20 down. This keeps the home in that spot, and works out pretty well. This means that if the xcarve doesn’t cut the full thickness all around on the first attempt (due to bowed wood or other factors), I can restart the machine from the exact same home spot and it won’t make any altercations on the recut.

The current way of doing that is fine, however, it gets annoying when a couple things occur. The first being that if I have to do a bit change. I have to change the bit, re home the machine, and then go again. The machine moves to much when I change bits, and it ALWAYS loses its last XY position, and will quickly ruin some wood when that happens. The second thing that occurs is when the machine shifts at all for any other reason. This can occur from a few things, INCLUDING me putting the dust collector on after the XY has been set. This is super frustrating. Just a little shift in the machine, and now everything is off a MM or 2.

It would be really nice if I could jsut go back to the home position at the click of a button, rather than having to restart the whole carve process, including the Z access again. Please make this happen soon!

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$H will home the machine.

Make sure your $1=255. This will make sure the steppers are enabled when idle.
Set your axis dip switches to disable idle current reduction.
These settings will make the machine hold position much better.

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Use the G28 command and set it to the home position

This

Easel has built-in “Use last Home Position”. That WCS zero will persist until you change it. If you use the same 0,0 all the time, just home the machine, set your Z, and carve.

Neil, Where do I send this commands from while in the Carve setup screen?

Also, it doesn’t hold the last position if anything shifts the X or Y. In the situation where I change a bit, the previous XY is always lost because the machine shifts a little when I do it. It moves the last position slightly every time.

How do I set the axis dip switches? or make any of the other suggestions you had made.

I’m not really all that familiar with my machine let. I am fairly new to it. Just learning a bit each day.

Thanks!

Turning your step idle delay all the way up (GRBL setting $1=255) and disabling the idle current reduction (by flipping the appropriate switches on your X-Controller) will make your stepper motors completely lock up when idle, making it significantly less likely that you’ll accidentally move the spindle anywhere when changing bits.

To set the GRBL parameter $1=255, in Easel, go to Machine → Advanced → Machine Inspector. In the console box, type “$1=255” and hit Enter to send. Next time you issue a jog command, the parameter change will take effect.

You’ll also want to disable the idle current reduction by flipping DIP switch 4 on all axes to “off” on the X-Controller board. With the X-controller off and power disconnected, open up the X-Controller case and flip switch 4 to “off” for all axes on the control board.

The alternative to doing all this is just to re-home the machine after each bit change. I feel like most of us go the route of locking the motors, though. :slight_smile:

Looks like @cg49me answered the questions. To be honest, when you get to these sorts of questions, my best advice would be to use a different user interface. Try CNCjs, you’ll love it once you get used to it. I’ve tried them all.

awesome. Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

Cool. I have been looking at getting into the UGS, but wasn’t sure what all it entailed.

I thought I needed to buy another board or something to use that?

With the CNCj’s, does it talk directly to the machine, or does it export the g-code?

Thanks again!

It is an interface to control the machine. you’ll generate your design & gcode somewhere else (Easel) and bring it in to CNCjs. It’s really super simple, and everything you could want (except autoleveling) is there in a nice GUI .

awesome thanks. I will get that setup!

Great help guys and gals.