Ok finally got stuff mostly setup. The sled still needs the weights added, bolts tightened, abs a couple other tuneups but i figured iwas ready for an initial calibration. Took awhile to figure out some obvious things like connecting the arduino and with the right port etc but I’ve gota green light on it I’ve checked ants double checked the power supply is pluggedin the right spot checked all plugs to motor and arduino and hit the motor test and you see the results inthe screen shot. I got as far in the calibration as trying to set the sprocket position but none of the motors will budge at all no noise nothing. So any help is appreciated. Thanks
Ok i really feel like an idiot. The power supply was plugged in to the shield as it is supposed to be but the outlet strip was not switched on. I ran an extension cord over to the machine and plugged my laptop and maslow into it and just assumed i had power since my laptop battery is pretty shot and usually won’t run without being plugged in and it was working, but when i came back to it to try again i got a low battery warning from the laptop and the light went on in my poor head. The only reason i don’t feel worse about it is that I’m an insomniac and last night got very little sleep so i was pretty fuzzy and found the problem right after a nap.
Been there, done that! Soon you will be cutting something!l
Yea - the reason - I asked is I once encounter the same problem in reverse. I had good power at the AC side but had not plugged it in the shield. I spent 40 min trying to figure it out. Then in hast I plugged it into the Arduino not the shield. When I realized what I did I made the plug cap to keep myself from making the same mistake ever again, now I check for 1 red & 1 green light. So the symptom sounded to familiar -the point is someone made the same mistake before you and someone before me. That’s why we have forums
Thank you
Thanks guys. A quick and dirty calibration got the machine doing everything i expected it to. While moving the sled around with the arrow buttons in ground control the little crosshairs and the actual sled seem to agree with each other. The machine thinksthe work surface is about 1/4" higher than it actually is but again i wasn’t as careful as i could have been. I didn’t cut the test pattern i just let the machine move the sled around to see if my z axis plywood clamp design would clear the ring system in all cases. Unfortunately it doesn’t but the z axis itself does seem to work pretty good. I set the distance the z axis should move every time you hit the button to 1/16" and it seems to work just fine.
Overall i call it a win for the day.
I should maybe make another thread for this however some other CNC software I’m using uses Key equivalents to up, down, left, right, Z+ and Z -. It allows you to use a keyboard and no mouse, or even a keypad. I’m not sure if it would be easy to do in ground control. I think the keys are Pg up & Pg Down, left and right arrows and + and -, it only works in positioning mode, 1-4 = speed or distance per key press .001, .1, 1, and fast ~5 mm respectively.
Thank you