All of the hardware, flat parts, everything purchased from you, back in August or September.
I flashed the board in December with the file below. As far as I know, everything is the most recent version of drivers. Not sure what else you are looking for?
Estlcam 11.040
Marlin-MPCNC_Rambo_T8_16T_LCD firmware. I cant seem to find a specific version other than 2.0.x It says the file was created 28 Nov 2018. When I boot the board it says 302 bugfix-2.0.x
Not sure on the board drivers.[attachment file=85706]
At a minimum, your rapid rates are too high - they are all F3000 and the z-axis really shouldnât be higher than F480. Something in you Estlcam process isnât working right because the gcode does not match settings you showed in one of your earlier posts. Did you inadvertently select the wrong tool when you saved the CNC program?
In that file the rapids are correct it is the feedrates and plunges are set too high. Some of those moves are not making sense, x is moving 400mm and Z is moving 40? I donât have an endmill longer than a usable 15.
Why donât you upload your e10 file and we can look at it. As you can tell all of us have never seen this sort of thing, so either you missed one tiny setting somewhere or you just need to uninstall and reinstall estlcam, and maybe your firmware. With you file, or maybe just your STL we can set up a program for you.
So you can eliminate all mechanical, control and, firmware issues by running my crown gcode. If the crown works it is literally just the CAM you are creating. Can it be a bug in Estlcam, yes, but without your file looking like we all expect it to we can even test it for you, none of use are going to run our machines at 50. So lets see your e10 or let me set up a file using your STL.
BT - As I mentioned, I just kept bumping up the feedrate trying to reduce the milling time. I have not tried to mill any material, I was just running the machine empty. Even at 3000 it was not traveling fast. The snip you saw with the strange code was from when I was trying different things in settings, I had clicked the repeat on x, y, and z.
Ryan - I know they are too high for realistic machining, I was just testing to see what was going on. I bought a extra long ball nose end mill specifically for this, it has a cut depth of 40mm, for foam it shouldnt be an issue. I attached the files. I modeled the entire piece, but for estlcam I used a masked workspace, and only selected the face to machine.
Yes I know its 8" x 24", thats part of the reason I need it to go fast for the roughing, it takes 3.5 hours per job to make one at typical harder material speeds, and I need to make like 40 of them.
Can you verify my Crown gcode works as expected on your machine. There is nothing about your gcode that would not work, so now we are back to hardware/firmware.
Ok here is the crown. I only did the outer tool path. There was some wobble of the pen, I only had painters tape to secure it, so the tip wandered a little. Everything looks fine to me.[attachment file=85749]
OK I think I got it to work as expected. I changed the max Z feedrate in FW to 8, and it ran perfect. Thanks Jeff for the suggestion. I think for anyone with a LR2, this would be a good thing to consider changing if you have issues with the Z axis skipping during rapid movements. [attachment file=85753]
Haha. I think this is a fine fix for me, for now at least. I like the idea of the firmware being limited for at least my build of the low rider. Ryan, I am willing to help out in any way I can, just let me know what you would like me to test. All of this is for a set for my sons play at school. I am making the pillars shown below. I am treating the foam like crown molding, and cutting a miter into the back side. In fact, I need to get over to the school now, set build is going on without me. I will post pictures of the final product if anyone is interested. Thanks everyone for your suggestions, we eventually got it to where it needed to be for the immediate fix.[attachment file=85760]
We should set the feedrate limits to something reasonable. Itâs hard to do on the MPCNC, but it would be easier on the LR. Is 8 a good limit in general for Z, or is that still too conservative?
This works because you are milling foam. If the project was wood or metal, then itâs quite possible 8mm/s is still too fast. Ideally CAM would ask for even slower rates. Iâve never done 3D milling. Does EstlCAM normally reduce feedrate on movements with a Z component if F(z) is lower than F(xy) in 3D? It seems possible that it could, but also possible it wonât. I vaguely remember this problem a year or so ago. If we had F(xy) set to F600 and F(z) set to F400, then I would want it to do this:
G1 X0 Y0 Z0
G1 X100 F600
G1 Z-1 F400
G1 X101 Z-2 F500 ; or something else in between, I didnât do the math.
Iâm AFK, or I would try it. It sounds like this is what Chad said he did, and they were all F(xy).
Ryan - Ok. Just a quick follow up, so I ran the machine a little and timed it moving across the work, and what I previously told you Ryan was wrong, it is moving close to 50 mm/s with F3000, so I donât think there is a bug in that regard.
However, I am curious to hear what you think a max feed rate would be with foam? When I have it moving at F3000, it doesnt feel like it would be any faster than I would move a router by hand through wood, let alone foam. I donât need to push it at break neck speed, but I also donât want it to take 3+ hours to make one of these things.
As you start going faster, the acceleration makes a big difference too. You might start skipping steps at high speeds if your accel isnât low enough.
You could try moving faster and faster, but you need kind of longer movements to get to top speed. The longer the move the higher the risk of jamming it at high speed when it skips.
Talking about this project specifically, a bandsaw or hot wire following a template would probably be 100x faster than pulverizing all that waste into dust.
The movements seem pretty smooth when I dry run it. I think I am going to let it run the entire cut empty, and see how it does. If all looks ok, I will try a piece of foam. I was actually thinking about the bandsaw idea the other day, to at least remove a big section of material and follow up with a finish pass. The problem I see is cutting across the 8 inch wide body standing on end may be tough with flexible foam. A hot wire might be good, but I donât have one of those handy.
SOâŚafter all that, here is the first cut. I had a couple issues with this first piece, and had to do a recut. I am fairly happy with the result considering this is the first time I have done any 3D milling, and also the first time using foam.
SO this was done using F2500 70% step over on the rough cut, and F3000 25% step over on the finish pass. I did notice there was a little jerkiness at the start of each new pass, but I set up the cut area outside the size of the work so it was fine when it actually made contact with the foam. I tried a couple spindle speeds, and I found on the Dewalt 611 the lowest setting was best. At the higher setting I had some minor melting.
For cutting the actual pieces, I will prob drop down to F2000 and F2500, it seems fine in the foam. The only real issue I had was the bit I got was a little long (6 inches), and a 4 inch would have been better to reduce tip walkout.
Thanks again everyone, I appreciate your advice in getting this going.
