I am 99% done with my new Low Rider. I am repurposing parts from MPCNC I built earlier including Octopus board I purchased by mistake. It took some time to make a custom firmware, board box and figure out pins but as of now I am trying to cut struts. Problem is my machine halts randomly when it is actually making cuts
. No issues with air cuts. My best bet right now is static buildup from vacuum hose. Ordered 300ft copper wire to wrap around the hose hope it will help.
You might not need to wrap the whole outside of the hose. In the PVC dust ducts that were in my workshop when I moved in the previous owner had run lengths of bare braided copper wire through the insides of the straight runs of the ducts and bonded this to an external ground. At elbows and joints in the pipe the wire is brought out through a drilled hole so that other lengths can be bonded together and the wire doesn’t need to go through the curves of the pipes. I’ve never had static buildup problems, although sometimes the wire serves as the initial landing point for larger chips or strings (like from a planer) that can lead to a clog. Since the joints aren’t glued and the wires are joined with twist-on wire nuts, it is easy to pop things open to clear the clog. I wouldn’t think that these kinds of clogs would be a likely problem with a CNC as long as the chips are small.
I’ve also had good luck using aluminum ducting tape to provide a conductive spot or surface on plastics or other electrical insulators. There’s a variant of the V1 pen holder on thingiverse that integrates a “touch plate” by adding aluminum tape.
Fanstic work and thanks for working through it here and proving the static from the vac system was causing the issues.
Sure, it might be just you but knowing that can me an issue is the first step to stopping it.
I dont have a big vac system, so does really apply to me, but thanks again!
I noticed directional inaccuracies. I did initial squaring and it all looks good however my right angled project always came out inaccurate in all dimensions and I was trying to figure out what is going on. On the image below I captured left wheel-bearing travel and it looks like it is shifting left or right depending on the direction of movement. This tells me that one side of the CNC is lagging and moves differently. I first assumed skipping steps but this is not the case since I can mill for hours same path over and over again and slot step downs always perfectly aligned. Suggestions? Should I tighten belts?
Uploading a video to illustrate better alignment issue. Pay close attention to blue lines in relationship to the bearing wheel when cnc moves back and force
For this part do you have a ground wire on your vac hose? If not get some cheap bailing wire, bend it around a paper towel and use the vac to suck it though the hose, then on the vacuum end run it and ground it at an outlet. the LR3 end I just drilled a small hole and ran it out and zip tied it. Doing this solved the shut down issues I was having.
Yeah, ground wire solved an issue with full shutdowns where steppers were disabling and an entire machine was falling down. I believe freezes unrelated because they also happen while laser is working and no particles being suctioned into the hose
I’m surprised Johnathan didn’t comment on your #1, it’s one of his favorites, and I feel he has a tally board keeping count.
Either way I feel he’s up to 95% success, on movement, in relation to direction changes being loose grub screws. Make sure they are still tight, especially if you didn’t use thread locker of some kind. (Assuming you didn’t already check them)
Also because of others, check the rail side to see if it’s lifting, or riding the rail correctly. There’s been more than one that had it lifting on the rail side, due to a alignment issue of sorts.
As Steve said. If it goes wrong on the side without the rail, it’s the rail’s fault. The side with the rail is the one guiding. If it is squared correctly, it should go straight.
If it is squared correctly, it should go straight.