First time user of Maslow.
I’ve built a 12’ frame, connected everything and set the chains.
I have the Metal Maslow (~2 years old with the linkages and Mega board) with linkages and am using the latest Webcontrol
I was hoping to use Holey configuration and overclock to cut large sheets but updating the Holey firmware (51.27) seems to cause issues so at the moment I only pressed the "upgrade stock firmwareb(1.26) and saved my quick configuration. I’m not sure what the Custom firmware does 101.25
I tested the motors and the sled moved left then right and the Z axis moved down and up. Cool
Next I set the bit close to my waste board and pressed triangular calibration > cut pattern
I get an error message “Sled can’t keep up”
Not sure where to go from here. I’ve been looking for more instructions and read most of the Webcontrol docs. It is wanting. I am patient and reasonably technically inclined.
When sled is not keeping up, the issue is one of two things typically:
no power to the motor board: motors not turning, so encoders are not registering movement, therefore, not keeping up.
the sled not keeping up error is a setting in advanced settings that can be changed to 20 instead of 2 and therefore it truly wasn’t keeping up.
Since the motors passed the test of movement, it is likely #2.
Custom firmware 101.xx requires a camera and was something the original developer used to test his new features and I’m not sure what all of them are. If you want to use holey firmware, move the existing holey-51.26.hex file, download the newer holey-51.29.hex file, and then put that in the webcontrol folder in place of the 51.26 version and then update with it. If they are both in there, then the 51.26 will be used.
Thanks. I think I saw another post from you where you use the Arduino IDE to compile and name the Holey hex before placing it in the directory or can I just place the file from here:
It looks like I have the latest Webcontrol but the Holey should be 51.28 according to the Github Webcomtrol v1.26 folder
Looks like it is the 1.4 shield and Mega 2560 R3
I turned off Fake servo and set the sled tolerance to 20
I moved the sled around my board to see that everything clears and then I pressed Home to send it back. On arriving home the Z axis almost destroyed itself. I did some experimenting after I got the screw back in position and found I needed to set a pitch of 24 for it to move the distances I was entering during testing. At 3ish it was moving 8x what it should. This seems OK now. Before I try the Holey calibration how should I set the Z axis and router bit? As it stand right now it looks like it has little travel to move into the board.
OK. All I need to do is lower the bit until it just touches the surface of the wood and then press “Define Zero”. I’ll do this with the Z axis more in the middle of travel and then clamp the router.
you actually should not be having your gcode move the router up much (if you are
you are wasting time), so you need to leave just enough upward travel to match
what your gcode calls for. beyond that, upward travel is wasted.
with the ‘stock’ router, you can’t adust the router, so you put the bit in the
router and then move the Z axis to get the bit to the right place and then
‘define zero’ There is provision for adding on a touch sensor so that you put a
metal plate under the router and the machine moves the Z axis until it touches
the plate and defines that as zero.
Yup. When I say move it up at the moment the router is close to bottoming and it has not entered the work so I need to move the z up so I can lower the router and ensure I have plenty of Z travel to move into the work after defining zero. The touch sensor is on my list. I did get the router relay working. Thanks!
Everything is good. I completed the Holey calibration. I think the main issue at the start was the sled travel sensitivity needing to be 20. Anyhow I’ll be moving on to cut my first project and learn more about G code. I am going to try to cut the folding chair scaled down to a child size. Thank you all