Primo Tuneup

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
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I’ve recently started to tune up my Primo after neglecting it this past years due to the high garage temps. There are a few parts that have cracked so I’ve replaced any that are critical and plan to replace the others when they get to a point that impact function.

One area that I’ve always wanted to mess with is maxing out the feed rate for my build. I’ve seen a couple videos where they bump up the feed rate until the machine starts skipping steps. So far I’ve maxed out at 800mm/s. This is based on some pretty crude stopwatch timing. I have not been able to get it to skip steps, I just don’t see any meaningful time reduction beyond that value.

Now, I know it’s most likely not hitting that speed for my build size, so I probably need to increase my acceleration as well. Has anyone tried this on a Primo? I would like to see if I’m heading in the right direction. Any guidance/input would be greatly appreciated.

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On my original home CNC build, based on EMC2 (now LinuxCNC), the tuning process that was recommended was to choose a slower, known-safe velocity, then start ramping up acceleration until steps were lost, then back off 5% or so for a safety margin. Then you can ramp up velocity in increments until you lose steps (knowing that acceleration won’t be what causes the step loss) and back that off 5% or so for a safety margin.

I’ve used this process on several machines since then. While I’m in this as a hobby, not needing to fill any production quotas, it’s nice to know I’m getting a proper level of performance out of the motion control systems without having to worry about lost steps.

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@ttraband , thanks for the info! I’ll try that out.