X-Carve or Easel goes off track mid cut

X-Carve Troubleshooting
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Hey everyone! New to the club here so looking for some guidance. I’ve started cutting little things and haven’t had many issues that weren’t the obvious mistakes on my end. But I am having an issue now that i cant figure out. It seems that if i try a cut that is longer then 2 hours the machine will always end up going off track. Sometimes well before that. For example I have a Planimetric table that I’m working on and it cut right through its own design. there is a whole cut out for a dowel during assembly, but the machine cut right through it when cutting the edge of the board. (the outer outline of the piece.) What’s more alarming after it was on its last passes to finish cutting out the outline (3/4ths thick birch ply) it just veered .25 inch south and started cutting all 3/4ths at the same time.

I’ve done the calibration work, its stepping correctly. I don’t think things are over heating, my work room is pretty cold…

Any ideas?

I have since removed the wholes for the dowels so you wont see them on the design (figuring they were more trouble then they were worth) any more but you can see where they were supposed to be on the pics I took.
https://easel.inventables.com/projects/CnNqWug2j9b23zesKMczfw

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@BurtonOliverLanglois welcome to the community! Sorry your running into that, especially on such a long cut, I know how annoying that can be to have to restart.

Can you trying jogging the machine all the way around the outset edge and see anything is bumping/colliding? The carve looks like it’s shifting all at once and normally its something like the dust boot hitting a clamp.

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Possible culprits for lost position:

  • Mechanical, pulleys etc slipping or axis trying to run past its extremes
  • Cutter forces exceed machine capacity (Forces are higher the deeper you go, more prone to chatter)
  • System, max feed rate / acceleration values too high for the system to maintain
    (Not likely with stock setup of new Xcarve)
  • Overload, stepper drivers running too hot causing a brief thermal protection shut-down.
    (Not likely with stock setup of new Xcarve)
  • Improper bit and/or feed rate/depth per pass set too aggressively.

Looks like your cut quality isnt too great, indicating some flex is happening.

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Thanks for the great tip! I’ll keep this in mind for sure! I have noticed a few issues with the clamps getting in the way and i’m learning where best to put them.

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Thanks for the great checklist to trouble shoot! I did find the culprit, One of the tensioner screws stripped out and wouldn’t hold tight. So my Y axis belt was coming very loose. Swapped out the tensioner and its working great now.

Thanks everyone for the great feedback!