X carve shifts/skips and ruins my carve

Hello everyone. So I started working on a project and it got 90% done. I heard the machine skip or stutter while outlining a basic circle that’s less than a 1/4” deep. That skip caused the bit to shift and it continued cutting on a different path and ruined my piece. I’m using a 60 degree v bit and not sure what i need to do to fix it. I also noticed that as it performs the basic outline of the circle, one side is not as deep as the other. I circled where it skipped on the photos. I would appreciate and help. Thanks.

How are you securing your material to your waste board? It looks like your material moved or your bit hit a clamp and caused it to lose steps.

I used tape and clamps. The clamps weren’t in the way. Tried three pieces and did it to all three.

Either your material is not flat or your wasteboard is not flat. Also you may need to tram your z axes that could also cause the depth problem. Why you lost steps could be anything but if you heard it stutter maybe the stepper motor is getting hot.

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Ok. I’ll check it out. I’ve used two different pieces when it skips and they appear flat. The wasteboard is new from inventables and I’m not having this problem with any other project. I’ll check the motor too but I know that I’ve done tougher projects and it’s knocked them out without any issues. Thanks for the post. I appreciate it.

Question, how come the letters are not coming out with straight lines? I’m have the same issue carving stars:

A stalled stepper will make a “grinding noise” and occur from insufficient torque to do the motion commanded. If OP’s stepper did that then something mechanical is causing friction.

A stepper motor can take a lot of heat and rarely any issue, they will typically cope with 176degC case temperature and I doubt that is the case here. (Max service temp)
The stepper driver on the other hand could overheat and if it does it will shut down as a precaution and re-energize when temp is down again (this can be very brief, less than 1s)

Regarding uneven depth, while the board is new it may not be 100% parallell to Z in height. Your material will also never be 100% even in thickness across the board.
To ensure the waste board is truly flat relative to Z you need to add a 2nd layer and perform a “skim cut”, just a large pocket covering the 2nd layer so its carved “flat” :slight_smile:

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