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

[VernonBrown]

How did you get the X-Carve to move 700 mm at one time?

[RobertA_Rieke]

When you click on the carve button, you have the option to move your spindle in whatever increments you choose. I usually choose 590ish to use as much as possible of my 600mm ruler.

[MartinLombana]

In the inscructions, for the ACME lead screw, there is no instruction whatsoever to "break the delrin nut in".
Only for the M8mm, because the video is for the M8mm one.
They just tell you to put it in, and that's all. Even the video for that procedure is inside the accordion of the M8 threaded rod. So, therefore, I skipped it.

That said, I jogged it in, and it's better. It can go to the top now. I also put a bit more current to the motor.

Also, in the homing setup it did get to the top, crushing my limit switch . They should put an in-between step that is as simple as:

Limit switches test:

Please, activate the Z Swich

Please, activate the X switch

Please, activate the Y switch

.....

Al seems correct!
[Start homing session?]

I am very dissapointed at this....

[RaphaelPascual]

Also, in the homing setup it did get to the top, crushing my limit switch . They should put an in-between step that is as simple as:

Limit switches test:
Please, activate the Z Swich
Please, activate the X switch
Please, activate the Y switch
.....
Al seems correct![Start homing session?]

agreed !
but personaly i did it myself, i launch the homing, and i press with my finger on the swich, if it dont work i quick plug out the main power. that's not realy a solution, but it help

[RamonDelValle]

Hey guys, new to the forum and new this x carve machine. I purchased it from a friend of a friend and he gave me the basic run down but I'm having a small issue. My milling seems to be off centered. Looks perfectly fine in easel but after carving it's about .25in off on both x and y axis! Any ideas? Thanks!

[PaulMeadows]

I'm still having Z axis issues also. Very annoying!

Been through the calibration instructions, got the measurement down from 320.00 to 185(ish) in easel. When I send it out to cut at 1mm depth it still drops to 5mm on it's first pass.

Not ideal when your trying to engrave acrylic!

[DarrylKegg]

@CharleyThomas has a YouTube video on how to do Axis calibration for X and Y, same concept can be applied for Z.... check it out, it might help here. The $102 (iirc) value dictates steps for Z, you should make sure that's set correctly.

[ChristophStieler]

Hey Robert, Thanks for your Video, it helps me a lot. Thumps up!

[ChrisMay]

It's actually a bad idea to adjust your potentiometer this way. You should set your vref to the rating of your motor, if you go over this, you run the risk of actually damaging your stepper motor (i ran into that when i first built my x-carve)

Once you damage the motor, it will either stop working all together, or lose power significantly.

[TheoRetos]

For the lesser informed out here what does that mean and how would you do that?

[ChrisMay]

at 2:49 in the video, he shows you how to read the amperage being sent to the motors, you should also know what amperage your motors are designed for. (in this case, i believe he said they are rated for 1.5a)
You want to start out with your potentiometer at it's lowest setting, then power the device, as he has done, and turn the potentiometer up until you reach this amperage. Going beyond a tiny bit may not cause damage, due to tollerance allowances by the manufacturer of your motor (i.e. they often undervalue the device for safety reasons) However, going above the manufacturer's suggested limits is asking for trouble.

[RobertA_Rieke]

It's true that you don't want to have them turned all the way up, but as long as you have a short duty cycle you can go up past the rated lead a scooch. If you're doing something like laser cutting though, where one axis is constantly in movement, you would want to have it turned down as low as possible in the operating range for that axis to maximize the life of everything.

[RobertA_Rieke]

For those that are handy enough to connect a couple wires and an LED to a battery, here's how I use a small touchplate I made to zero out the Z axis on my workpiece. It's easy to make this touchplate, and it helps immensely with multi-bit projects. It's not as good as a 3-axis touchplate, but it works great for Z.

[JkWestphal]

I wonder if some sort of audible device added to the circuit might be helpful? That way one would not always need to be looking at the little red light.

[RobertA_Rieke]

I considered that, but didn't have a piezo that worked with 1.5V. If I ever make a second version (probably won't), it'll be unbowed and have a switch for light/sound/both.

[JkWestphal]

Sorry, it popped into my head and I couldn't resist....

[RobertA_Rieke]

It's not necessarily a maintenance or troubleshooting video, but here's a video I made showing how to go from Google SketchUp to Easel.

[SvenDeSmet]

Oo, this is a handy forum post! I just done a new carving... First hour everything worked perfect! Carve looks great... 10 min later I started a new carve, my machine lost steps. I've encountered this problem before, when there is "to much" dust on the rails,it shifted a mm or so. But, if I see your x carve, it's even more dusty then mine! So, maybe I did something wrong... Aah well, I'll use your videos as a guidance

[RobertA_Rieke]

My X-Carve gets pretty dusty, but I haven't had much of a problem with it. I don't let it get too bad though, since the MDF dust will tend to compact into a grayish scale that takes more than a quick wipedown to remove.

[ShaiwalRawat]

Thanks for sharing the info.