Primo MPCNC Build- Oregon 2023

Nice!

So it was actually grinding because one side wasn’t moving and it was trying to rip itself off the rails. That makes sense now.

Are there settings for the homing sequence in the firmware? It seems like with dual end stops if one gets triggered, it should stop before it travels too far (like 5mm or so) if the other end stop does not trigger. That way it won’t try to tear itself apart if there is a wiring issue or the end stops aren’t set correctly. I don’t see any parameters for this in the Marlin G28 reference.

No none that I know of.

On the other hand, in most cases you will always be standing right there so if there is an issue hit the panic button.

I have read several posts about setting the home position from the lcd, but I can’t figure out how to do it. I have just been entering the g92 command in the terminal. Anyone know where this is in the lcd?

Are you using the touch display or the Marlin version? In the marlin version there is a “V1 Custom Menu” that has a reset all coordinates. The touch screen doesn’t have that built-in as that display firmware occasionally “breaks” the old screen settings, or something like that. The V1 team chose to stop trying to keep up with BigTree updates.

The Marlin menus are managed by the team, in fact they haven’t needed to make changes there in quite a while (at least as far as Iknow).

Mike

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I bought the touch display from V1 and I am using the firmware that was loaded on it.

If you push and hold the selector wheel in, after 5 seconds you can select Marlin mode.

It is really best to set the home position in your starting Gcode though. That is how it is laid out in the milling basics page.

Thanks. That was my first crown with estlcam and I did not put it in the start code. I will from now on. I had read about going into marlin mode, but I didnt really know what it meant. I will have a look

Got everything ready for my first cut last week and realized my 1/8 collett was actually a 1/4 and my bits were all 1/8. So I hit up V1E and recieved the collette and 1/4 single flute yesterday. Time to cut som foam. First cut has some issues I need to check. Massive stairstepping, I think just on the x. I need to check that everything is still tight. I used lock tight, but grub screws seem like a likely culprit in my forum reading. I am also curious about speeds. I used a pp for vcarve and it has the feedrate on each line, but it is set for the xy speed even when there is a combined xyz move. It uses a slower speed for z only plunge. Is this ok? Usually the z move is small since it is mostly on the finishing pass, so z feedrate may be low still, but I am not sure how to tell.

Forgot to mention, I did several drawings before this that did not show any issues on the x axis. I am wondering if it has something to do with the z move, or maybe it is just the added weight of the splindle is pushing it over the edge.

It should not be, each stepper is rated for something like 23lbs and the Z is way more than that.

That X stepping could be wires catching, too fast of feedrates, too tight or too loose belts, or too tight bearing clamps.

Start with the most common, what are your feedrates and travel rates?

You say you have a board from me, did you get the steppers from me, if not they might need to be tuned differently in terms of current.

I ordered the skr pro board and tft from you. I had an amazon gift card, so used all of the links on the build page to buy parts, so hopefully they are the same steppers. I also ran it doing several drawings and did not see any issues. That may be a little different because there is no z move and no harsh transitions like rastering, so I am not sure if it would have showed up. I checked the pulleys this morning and nothing obvious. Tyring them with my fingers, the trucks moved with no apparrent backlash. I plan to check tightness on everything tonight. BTW, have you thought abount adding a nut capture feature to the trucks? It is really a PITA to get a wrench on the bolt behind the stepper.

This is the most important question.

I mentioned above, the PP I am using for Vcarve is putting the feedrate in a G1 X Y Z move at the XY feed rate. Ex: G1 X168 Y22 Z3.2 F1100. I am not sure if this is an issue or not. Generally the Z delta is small because it is following he roughing profile. I am running around 1100 mm/min XY and 350 mm/min Z. With a stright Z plunge, it uses the lower speed. I am only working in foam right now.

Are there any G0’s in your code at all, if so what feedrate are those set at? The G1 is fine.

I am really can’t be much help with vcarve. If you want to run estlcam while testing I can be of more help.

Did you check the other things I mentioned? with the power off do all axies move very easy?

Are your steppers warm or hot while running? The steppers linked are not the exact steppers I sell and amazon links change randomly so I really have no idea what steppers you have.

OK, so I tightened the trucks and core some. It had loosened up some, so just made sure all bearings were touching. The pulleys seem ok, so I didn’t do anything with them yet. I made a simple profile in EstlCAM and Vcarve to see the differences. I have not run them yet, but wanted to see what is going on with them. The vcarve is based on test5 from this forum. ESTL is using the stock marlin. Here is the first cut on vcarve:
G0 X6.825 Y7.500 Z4.000 F2000.0
G1 Z-1.875 F400.0
G1 Y76.899 F1000.0
G1 Y88.249 F1000.0
G1 Y142.500 F1000.0
G1 X6.828 Y142.642 F1000.0
G1 X6.838 Y142.785 F1000.0
G1 X6.854 Y142.931 F1000.0
G1 X6.878 Y143.078 F1000.0
G1 X6.909 Y143.226 F1000.0
G1 X6.948 Y143.374 F1000.0
G1 X6.994 Y143.522 F1000.0
G1 X7.048 Y143.669 F1000.0
G1 X7.110 Y143.814 F1000.0
G1 X7.180 Y143.958 F1000.0
G1 X7.257 Y144.099 F1000.0
G1 X7.343 Y144.237 F1000.0
G1 X7.435 Y144.372 F1000.0
G1 X7.535 Y144.501 F1000.0
G1 X7.642 Y144.626 F1000.0
G1 X7.755 Y144.745 F1000.0
G1 X7.874 Y144.858 F1000.0
G1 X7.999 Y144.965 F1000.0
G1 X8.128 Y145.065 F1000.0
G1 X8.263 Y145.157 F1000.0
G1 X8.401 Y145.243 F1000.0
G1 X8.542 Y145.320 F1000.0
G1 X8.686 Y145.390 F1000.0
G1 X8.831 Y145.452 F1000.0
G1 X8.978 Y145.506 F1000.0
G1 X9.126 Y145.552 F1000.0
G1 X9.274 Y145.591 F1000.0
G1 X9.422 Y145.622 F1000.0
G1 X9.569 Y145.646 F1000.0
G1 X9.715 Y145.662 F1000.0
G1 X9.858 Y145.672 F1000.0
G1 X10.000 Y145.675 F1000.0

and here is the the first few lines for ESTL:
G00 X-3.1800 Y60.2300 F2100
G00 Z0.5000 F480
G01 Z0.0000 F180 S24000
G01 Y59.2300 Z-0.5000 F180
G01 Y60.2300 Z-1.0000 F180
G01 Y0.0000 F900
G03 X0.0000 Y-3.1800 I3.1800 J0.0000 F900
G01 X85.2300 F900

I am not sure what vcarve is doing. I used the rectangle tool to create the vector and a profile tool path with a 1/4" end mill. Why is it not going straight?

I will try to run them both in foam in the next couple of days to see what happens.

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Sorry, I was reading this wrong. The vcarve code posted is just the rounded corner. The next lines are the straight edge:
G1 X96.581 F1000.0
G1 X107.931 F1000.0
G1 X190.000 F1000.0

I will give them both a go and report back.

Well, not really definitive, but may give some clues. I ran similar cuts with vcarv and estlcam. Vcarve had massive stair stepping. Estl had one small one. I was also going to include fusion 360, but I must have set the origin in the center instead of the corner, so I had to stop it and ran out of time. The feedrate on the estl was slightly lower than vcarve, 900 vs 1000. Depth of cut was also shallower with estl. I need to get these cuts defined the same for apples to apples compare. The picture is a little busy, I was trying to save material, so I overplapped them. The top line is vcarve. The second short line is the fusion cut that I aborted. The third line is estlcam. The stairstep on the estlcam was removed, but the result was that the first line was 3/16 and the second line was 1/4". 3 of the estl lines were perfect. The vcarve had 4 stairsteps lines parallel to the y axis and one on the lines parallel to the x axis. Any ideas?

That is nothing. I run about 1200 in 12mm deep slotting cuts in MDF. Something else is majorly wrong.

Are you sure every single stepper is moving.

It is time to start showing us some build pictures I think.

Zip and upload your Full gcode, your snippets are missing all the starting stuff that is pretty vital.

How is it wired series or parallel?

Are the steppers warm, hot, or cold when running for more than 20 minutes.

Here are the full gcode files.
profile_180x130_estl.gcode (12.9 KB)
Profile 1_Vcarve.gcode (32.0 KB)