Router Rapidly Moving Sideways During longer Runs

Like I said… Depending on where you live :slight_smile:

Tracking down noise issues can be fun. There’s other cases on the forum of that happening. I’d start with searching for that.

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Is it possible for interference from the router power cable to feed back through the motor wires?
The only thing I changed about the machine, other than longer runs, is I re-ran my router power cable along the same route as the wires for my z-axis motor. They now run right next to each other. I did see a tiny kick from the router just before the problem arose.

Is it possible that the kick from the router caused a slight spike in the power draw of the router, which in turn induced a current in my motor wiring, which fed back into the MiniRambo and caused one of the other motors to go a bit nuts?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. I’m a physicist by training so the physics makes sense, but my understanding of the circuitry that goes into these things is pretty rudimentary so I don’t really know if that kind of response is feasible.

I guess one thing to try is go back to my old run for the router cable and see if it happens again.

Ok, looking around through the forums I also found this thread.

I checked my estlcam settings and I still have that checked, I must have missed that setting. Is it possible that is what is causing my issue?

Thanks so much to everyone helping, you’ve been amazing.

Highly unlikely. EMI causes current and it is pretty small when it gets through all that plastic and air. The motors have a lot of current going between them, so it would take a lot of interference to affect them.

More susceptible are the signals between the LCD and the board or the USB cable. This is the best fit because changing a gcode from G1 X100 to G1 X10 is just one mistake.

Medium risk are the signals from the microcontroller to the drivers, which are really small wires (that’s good) but they are digital signals, with no current, so they can be affected. That’s pretty rare and it doesn’t make sense for it to be never happening, and then happening millions of times at once.

Me too! A long time ago. My BS is in physics, my masters in EE, but I have been working robotics/software engineering since college.

Arcs should be ok. We used to get a bunch of weird issues. They aren’t used often in 3D printing, so the code is error prone. Some of the recent problems we’ve had were related to it taking a really long time to compute arcs, or if you turn them off, then the CAM can turn a tiny arc into a thousand commands and that can end up saturating the serial connection.

How are you sending the gcode? Pi, laptop, or SD? Can you try a different one?

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Thanks for all that information. That makes sense. I’ve moved the board to the shelf underneath the machine so that will give it a bit more distance and hopefully help with interference. Also I’ve enclosed it to keep dust away just in case.

How are you sending the gcode? Pi, laptop, or SD? Can you try a different one?

I’m sending via SD card through the LCD screen. I could try borrowing my wife’s laptop, unfortunately mine is a work one and locked down so I couldn’t install repetier on it. It it possible to use an Android device to run it? I have a banged up old android tablet with USB ports that would be perfect.

There is a gcode sender on android. I haven’t used it personally. You would need the proper cable. USB OTG, unless your android has full sized USB host connectors on it.

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@AndyUK had a similar issue. This post describes his conclusions.

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Thanks Pete. I couldn’t find it. But this is what I was referring to.

Can you check your gcode for G2 or G3 commands? The fact that there is a perfect circle drawn just before the tool moves straight off is curious to me. If marlin is choking on the arc move somehow and the movement planner goes nuts that could be one explanation.

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Yeah I’ve had a look at the Gcode and yes there are G2 and G3 commands. However there are several of them a fair way before that particular cut that killed it, so I don’t think the G2 and G3 thing is my problem.

I’ve revived an old Android tablet and confirmed that it connects and can control the router. Now I just need to create a Gcode file and give it a go. I’ll post back when I do and we’ll find out if that was my issue.

The tablet will probably be a more elegant solution long term anyway. It has a web interface so I can send the Gcode files to it wirelessly instead of by SD card, and I can use the camera of the tablet for monitoring from inside the house.

Thanks for this, I’ll also give those steps a go. Maybe I need to be in the habit of slow formatting my SD cards more often, that SD card did jump around a bit so that could definitely be an issue.

Consider CNC.js on an Raspberry Pi. I’ve found it a rather elegant solution for running my MPCNC and my laser engraver.

Man, I wish our “depth of winter” was that warm…

Wait until he tells you about his ‘heat of summer’…

Or the "Drop Bears of Spring’… :koala: :skull:

Lol, as an Australian who has spent a few winters living overseas, not even in especially cold places, but places where it snows every winter (the coldest temperature on record where I live is 2 Celcius, so snow is unheard of) I appreciate that what we call “cold” is very different to what the rest of the world calls cold.

Thanks for the Raspberry Pi suggestion, I’m just about to try my tablet option and see how it cuts.

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Well I just did an almost 3 hour run controlling it from my Android tablet instead of the LCD screen and it worked flawlessly.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, definitely looked like an electrical interference problem or issues with the SD card not being formatted correctly. Either way I’m quite content with using the tablet as a controller, much easier to use.

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I don’t know. I work in attics when it’s over 90F and 80% humidity outside now… I really need to stop doing that.

Yeah… I don’t do that.

There’s only 4 months out of the year that I’m willing to do work in the Attic where I live; March, April, October, November

It sounds like you like your new setup. But if you wanted to go back to the lcd for some reason, shorter cables might help, or shielding them might help.

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@BobBurgess, You said this is the mini rambo. There should be a firmware version like 414 on the LCD when it starts up. What version do you have?