New, curious and don’t want to damage my X-carve so I’m calling on experienced users. I see Z axis adjustment knobs on the projects page but then read other posts in the forums not to move the machine manually, use the software to “jog” if needed. Can someone share some info on if you should or shouldn’t move your X-carve manually and why. Thanks.
From my understanding, its that you can move it manually, but you don’t want to spin the stepper motors too fast because it will generate an electrical current and feed it back to the x controller. So you can do it very slowly but me personally, I would jog it with the software.
When powered on you shouldn’t be able to move it.
When off, my opinion is that you should be fine, but that opens a can of worms…
I bought two of these: Shaft Coupling Rigid. 5mm to 5mm
cut them in half, faced the cut ends, and put them on the shafts of my NEMA 17 steppers. They work fine for moving the three axes when the steppers are NOT powered up. I haven’t found anything equivalent for NEMA 23 shafts.
One downside of moving the steppers with the unit powered on is that if you have homed or zeroed and then move the steppers the X-carve is unaware that this movement has taken place. This may have implications when carving.
My machine is not an X-carve and it does have adjustment wheels on all axes. I generally jog, but I sometimes adjust the Z when dialing in the workpiece with the paper test.