I’ve had my X-Carve Pro since last year and was only able to use it twice before I had some medical issues that kept me out of the shop. A few days ago I came back out and tried to cut a project that had worked correctly last year. This time the spindle dropped over 12mm into the work piece with a depth per pass setting of 3.2mm. This was on the second attempt, the first attempt was using the probe to set the Z-Axis for the first time; that resulted in the Z-Axis cutting all the way through the 12.7mm work piece and over 12mm into the spoil board. I’ve tried different projects with different thicknesses of wood and different type of bits with the same results. I talked to Tech Support and they suggested checking the tension on the X-Axis belts. Checked and they were OK. I’m just lost at this point, finally I’m healthy enough to play with my new toy, but…
I suggest checking tension on the Z axis belt (maybe that was just a typo in the write up) AND also checking the grbl settings on f the machine. . .Press Ctrl+Shift+D and scroll to the bottom to see the current settings. This is what I have for the defaults.
Thanks Seth, looks like the belt might have been a tiny bit loose, although I don’t think that’s the issue. Now the $30 and $102 parameters are not the same as your settings. the $30 is Max Spindle Speed and mine is set at 12000 and the $102 is Z, Step/mm… looks like that might be the incorrect number. How do I enter the new parameters to take effect? Just $102 160 on the console line?
Yep, you’d just type $102=160 into the console and send it. . . you can then scroll back down, press the little refresh icon and verify the value is saved properly.
Awesome thanks, setting changed, now to clear off the waste board and try again, I’ll let you knw the results
A more common issue with the XCP Z height lowering is that $1 setting not set to 255. They should have fixed this on newer shipments, but on older ones this was set to a different value.
with $1 set to a lower value the steppers do not HOLD position all the time, and with the Z axis gravity will make it start to fall immediately after Z zero is probed UNLESS this is set to 255.
the value of $1 is hold time in milliseconds (with 255 = infinite)
Good to know, I did notice the other day there was an update to the firmware, which I installed and $1 is set to 255. The Carve I just tried turned out PERFECT! Thanks, now just curious about the $30 Spindle speed, mine is set at 12000 and you show 24000; should I change mine to 24000?