I was a 4.0 and 4.1 Kickstarter backer and finally got the robot all set up with firmware 1.03, but am not able to get it calibrated.
I am working on a concrete floor, with the anchors at 2248mm (88.5") x 3086 mm(121.5"). The config menu is different from the videos. I set the Dist Extend to 1900 (75"), which puts the device about in the center of the rectangle. But I am not clear on what the calibration grid settings should be. If I enter the dimensions of the anchor points, it says the grid is too big. Am I to enter the gridās square size (e.g. a 3rd, 7th, or 9th of the work area)?
One of my belt stops ~6" from full retraction. I extended all the belts fully and retracted again, but the same belt pauses a bit out. If I hit Retract more times it will move in bit by bit, and will finally seat. Could this become an issue when cutting?
Once I anchor the belts and run the calibration it seems to start to work, but I donāt know what it is supposed to look, sound and feel like. It sounds like the motors may be skipping? I canāt tell. It seems to register a few points, then it loops in calculating fitness, saying the fitness is too low calibration settings cannot be used. What does this mean? The belts also unspool a lot while calibrating, but seems to self correct. Is that normal?
I raised retraction force from 900 to 1200 as I saw another post with a similar issue, but that didnāt help.
It would be amazing if there was a calibration troubleshooting flowchart, if not a video, showing all the things to look out for.
Your anchor points are best well outside of you work area, bigger is better. Which also means that the calibration grid size should be less than your anchor points as well.
I am working on a concrete floor, with the anchors at 2248mm (88.5") x 3086
mm(121.5"). The config menu is different from the videos. I set the Dist
Extend to 1900 (75"), which puts the device about in the center of the
rectangle. But I am not clear on what the calibration grid settings should be.
If I enter the dimensions of the anchor points, it says the grid is too big.
Am I to enter the gridās square size (e.g. a 3rd, 7th, or 9th of the work
area)?
ideally this is around the size of your work area, but since we are seeing
issues near the edges, itās best to some in from that a bit
One of my belt stops ~6" from full retraction. I extended all the belts fully and retracted again, but the same belt pauses a bit out. If I hit Retract more times it will move in bit by bit, and will finally seat. Could this become an issue when cutting?
increase your retraction force limit
Once I anchor the belts and run the calibration it seems to start to work, but
I donāt know what it is supposed to look, sound and feel like. It sounds like
the motors may be skipping? I canāt tell. It seems to register a few points,
then it loops in calculating fitness, saying the fitness is too low
calibration settings cannot be used. What does this mean? The belts also
unspool a lot while calibrating, but seems to self correct. Is that normal?
fitness to low means that itās estimate of where the anchors are is poor enough
that you should probably not use it (fitness = 1/average error of measurements
to calculated anchor points). Starting again with a better starting estimate of
where the anchors are helps. Sometimes you need to go through several cycles.
I raised retraction force from 900 to 1200 as I saw another post with a similar issue, but that didnāt help.
I have the same problem. Iām trying to calibrate for the 1st time and the instructions are incorrect. The instructions tell you to set the machine size (presumably this is the frame size) but the config screen doesnāt have anywhere to enter the machine size. I tried the same thing you did re: Diet to Extend and got the same errors when I tried to enter my correct work area (grid too big). I eventually entered some random numbers and got it to calibrate but no idea what itās calibrated to.
Iāve also found that nothing works correctly the first time or every time. I have to redo everything 1000 times to get it to work (eg retract all). No rhyme or reason to it. This may be the most frustrating and buggy thing Iāve ever dealt with.
Also, the amount of ātry thisā in the forums is a bit scary. This thing is going to be running a router, which is dangerous enough. The settings should be pretty well known in order to provide a safe environment. The fact that people are all just guessing at settings that might work is a bit insane for this thing.
I was having similar frustrations with getting mine calibrated, the first time i did a calibration i got stuck in the fitness too low loop as well. I also agree the levels of instruction and what to look for are lacking, but dont give up, it is useable.
My calibration issue was the fact i was on a horizontal surface, for the first calibration cycle the maslow tries to put slack into a belt, which with nothing pulling that belt out, causes slack on the spool and can cause tangles. My belts got tangled and then retraction and extention wouldnt really work. With a vertical setup, gravity seems to keep everything in place. What you have to do when calibrating in a horizontal setup, is manually pull the belts out gently as they go slack to avoid tangles on the spool. After its done its first cycle and fitness calibration it will then keep the belts tight itself.
If youve tried doing a calibration on a horizontal setup and its just caused more issues then check for tangles. You can get the tangles out by pulling the maslow apart or you can do it by extending the belts as far as they go
Today I tried again and failed again. I was able to extend and retract my belts (about all this thing can do repeatedly). When I try to calibrate I get stuck in a fitness loop. Maslow-serial-2.log (93.6 KB)
No clue what the issue is. Wish there was some basic documentation to get this thing to do something useful.
Also, I think thereās a bug in the software that wonāt let you input the correct config values. My anchors are set in a 8āx12ā rectangle. That should give me an āextend distanceā of 2032 (assuming extend distance = distance from center of my workspace to each anchor - this is not a documented setting so Iām guessing). If I input 2032 in Extend Distance, then I get errors about the calibration grid size being too big. The errors keep popping up no matter what grid size I set. Then randomly, the settings will save without an error. What does the Calibration Grid correlate to? What is meant by 9x9 vs 3.3. @bar Where is the basic doc for this stuff?
in earlier versions of the firmware (which the instructions were written for),
you entered your guess at the frame size, in the 1.x version, you enter how much
belt to feed out to reach the anchors instead. The instructions have not been
updated to reflect this, but the notes on the 1.0 release where you are told how
to install 1.x do mention this.
The grid size is what area you want to have the machine use for itās
calibration, This needs to be smaller than your work area. (how much smaller is
a good question, the larger the better, unless you get into an area that
triggers inaccurate measurements, there is a long thread on skew that if
learning new things about this and showing that inaccuracies are worse than
expected near the edges)
the 9x9, etc grid is how many points to measure within that grid size area
Things are in very active development right now, and some of the ātry thisā from
the forum is finding new things (problems and solutions) on a regular basis
the other part of ātry thisā is that we canāt see your machine, we donāt know
what exactly itās doing or what itās displaying, so we have to make guesses and
have you try them and report back to be able to help you.
Some of the problem with the documentation is that itās behind, some is that the
people who are writing the documenation are too close to the machine and donāt
realize that what seems obvious to them is not obvious to others.
Maslow is currently a one-man company and he has been focusing on getting as
much shipped as poosible before tariffs kick in and then fixing the software, so
the documentation has slipped (there is a discussion of changing where the
documenation is so that others can contribute to it more easily, but making that
change will be work)
So my issue with that is that focusing on shipping is at the expense of the many people who already paid good money for a machine they canāt use because the documentation isnāt there or the software is buggy or any number of issues. Iām trying to run a standard Maslow 4, updated firmware to the latest, and I cannot calibrate. Sounds like @caddad and many others are in the same boat. Maybe we need a Maslow Discord channel for people to exchange help more immediately than this message forum.
So back to the problem at hand, Iāve got a horizontal setup, 10x8ā, 4x8ā workspace. If I enter 2048 as my extend length (which is the length from the center of my workspace to my anchors) and I use the default 2000 and 1000 measurements for the calibration size, I either get grid size errors (no matter which grid size I use) or if the grid size miraculously takes hold, my calibration fails endlessly due to fitness errors. I have no clue what the problem could be (belts are not knotted or bunched, I have wifi connection). The forums seem to have many people with the same problem but no solution.
So back to the problem at hand, Iāve got a horizontal setup, 10x8ā, 4x8ā
workspace. If I enter 2048 as my extend length (which is the length from the
center of my workspace to my anchors) and I use the default 2000 and 1000
measurements for the calibration size, I either get grid size errors (no
matter which grid size I use) or if the grid size miraculously takes hold, my
calibration fails endlessly due to fitness errors. I have no clue what the
problem could be (belts are not knotted or bunched, I have wifi connection).
The forums seem to have many people with the same problem but no solution.
a 9x9 grid should work
try 1600x900 for the grid size (2000 wide x 1000 high is getting into
questionable areas with only a 10āx8ā frame)
if itās cycling through the calibration saying bad fitness, please record a
video of one cycle so we can see if we spot anything odd happening.
Trashed my .yaml and uploaded the latest firmware .yaml. Tried starting over. Same problem. Endless fitness loop.
[MSG:INFO: Top Left pulled tight with offset 0.000]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Left pulled tight with offset -0.011]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Right pulled tight with offset -0.043]
[MSG:INFO: Top Right pulled tight with offset -0.032]
[MSG:INFO: Center point off by: TL: 0.000 TR: 0.000 BL: 743.546 BR: 601.972]
[MSG:ERR: Center point off by over 100.000mm]
[MSG:INFO: Frame size automaticlaly adjusted to 3189.821289 by 3189.821289]
My actual frame size is 12x8ā (3657x2438) so Iām not sure where the 3189x3189 numbers are coming from.
The new yaml file must have a correctly spelled name without any numerical additions, or it wonāt be accepted.
These numbers indicate the number of millimeters each belt is offset from the center. The distance between belts Bl and Br is too large, indicating a measurement error. This measurement is calculated by the magnet installed on each arm. If not enough glue is applied, the magnet will slip, and the measurements will be incorrect.
Excuse my English, Google is helping me translate.
Thanks @BarryRalphs - if you scroll back through the thread, @dlang says that 9x9 should work, @bar says 5x5 should work, now you say 3x3 should work. Iāve tried them all. None work. Itās the same situation every time. Iāve tried many times and many ways over a period of a few days.
Iāve increased my retraction force from 900 to 1500 in increments. Doesnāt make a difference.
Iāve retracted and extended my belts so many times. Makes no difference.
I increased my frame size from 8x10 to 8x12. Makes no difference.
Iāve upgrade the firmware, yaml, index to the latest. Makes no difference.
Iāve attached my logs to this thread.
@Betalombo suggests that my distance between belts Bl and Br is too large (not sure what that means) but those numbers change every time I retract, extract, calibrate. Iāve had:
Center point off by: TL: 0.000 TR: 0.000 BL: 682.859 BR: 627.421]
as well as
Center point off by: TL: 0.000 TR: 0.000 BL: 51.861 BR: -19.326]
Everyone seems willing to help, which is great, but no one really seems to be able to help because no one really seems to know why this happens and how to fix it. Many people post the same problem in the message boards (repeated fitness errors) but I have not seen a single, repeatable, set of instructions to fix the problem and get cutting.
I hear you - Iām also going through the motions of trying to get my machine up and running but itās essentially a work in progress machine, and seems to have a pretty great community supporting it. Unfortunately the price tag comes with the lack of documentation and thorough troubleshooting, because itās literally being worked through, just one of those tradeoffs.
While Iām brand new, and are still to make my first cut, perhaps my experiences can help;
-My board has a Z axis fault, and thereās a new one on the way.
-There seems to be a quirk in that I have to retract and release the spools twice before the machine kinda knows where it is.
I had issues initially when assembling the belts in that the new belt guards are a bit finicky when tightening, if you do them up to standard tighness when assembling, the plastic binds up making the belt hard to move. Making them tight-ish, assembling both parts of the arms and then tightening the whole arm up once assembled seems to fix this.
The extension number shouldnāt be the full length / width of the board - when it is extended (I think mine is the default of 700?) the Maslow sits about in the centre of the spoil board, so the belt extension is enough to reach about half way from the machine to the anchor point. I hang one top one, then the second, then the two bottom ones, my setup is vertical
Once the machine is hanging, I can then either take up the slack or calibrate.
If I lose communication with the board, I have to retract and then extend the belts again, unfortunately this means taking down the Maslow which is a pain, but hopefully this is something to do with my bung board and not a constant dance.
Hopefully something in there will resonate, the more info thatās out there the better.
Like you, Iām muddling my way through, learning and trying to get to that elusive first cut, but I always knew thereād be a big learning curve and some technical issues. Perhaps documenting the pain points will help craft that documentation..
Itās a huge challenge to understand Maslow, and to make it work, you need to familiarize yourself with his language. I donāt think anyone can say exactly what to do, as there are so many variables, from the assembly process to the firmness and size of the frame.
BL is abbreviation for Bottom left belt and BR is abbreviation for Bottom right belt, TL: Top Left, TR: Top rigth
It is also possible at the time of assembly to place the magnet on the opposite side of the reader and not read it. Some messages are given by the machine very clearly and others must be combined with the experience of the assembly to decipher the cause and solution.
