This is just a run of a 1x2 metre rectangle showing current readings. No Router operating, vacuum attached but not on. Video sped up 500%
Is this a vertical or horizontal frame?
Horizontal, Spools have been sanded and lubricated, Retract and Configure forces set to 900. Just for demonstration purposes, no problems encountered. I was just seeing how much current was required to move around. I intend to try again while cutting and compare.
Hi, will the current on the opposite motors in the direction of travel, about 80-100mA, keep the belts sufficiently tight? Thank you.
I also have it sanded, some parts were broken, so I’m waiting for the print and I can’t wait to revive it again and compare the motor currents.
What lubricant did you use? Or none? AI advises using dry PTFE in spray.
Appears to.
I used a mixture of graphite and petroleum grease. It has been pointed out to me that some plastics are affected by petroleum, so do your research. Bar recommended Silicon spray.
Comparison.
First I did a shallow cut (2mm) with a Maslow 2 cutter uplift bit in MDF, then raised the Z Home so bit cleared work surface and ran job again (Approx 2 x 1 metre rectangle). Interestingly, it used more current the 2nd run, when it was not cutting.
Comparison Cutting NotCutting
Note: on completion of the 2nd job iteration, it took 3 attempts for TL-BR belts to release tension
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This is looking great!
Do you by any chance have a picture of what the belt layout looks like when you are all the way in one of the corners of that rectangle?
I have a theory that the belt angles matter more than how close we are getting to the anchor points
I don’t, but I will run it again and get some. My belts are set up to be more or less parallel when Z is right down
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that looks wrong, the top left belt should be the highest arm.
bottom left should be the lowest
it looks like you have these reversed (I would guess the other two as well)
Since you set the anchors so the belts are close to flat and are staggered to
match the belts, you have the same Z offset for every belt so it doesn’t
actually matter.
David Lang
I have set them at various heights and this is what works best for me. I’ve had tipping problems when I was using the default arrangement. So long as the belts are reasonably flat and a relatively long distance from the cutting area and the Z offsets are correct it does not matter too much on a horizontal layout. It was more of a problem when I had it vertical, which was when I set them the way they are now.
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I have a theory that maybe a contributing factor to the machine struggling in the corners is how the anchor points are laid out. If they are laid out so that going to the corner leads to a situation where three belts are pulling one way and only one is pulling the other way it could be hard for the one belt that is fighting 3 to keep up/
I was wondering if maybe your setup looked significantly different than the one in this thread, but it doesn’t look too different:
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This is possible, but I suspect it is exacerbated when the spools don’t rotate easily. I also suspect the belts are tightening and fighting each other as the job progresses, which is indicated when I ran the same job, after the cutting run, without the bit touching the surface. I noticed an increase in current required to move the Maslow. Because my Anchor points are further away from the work area, and I have added a metre of rigid aluminium to each belt, variations in height, and thus the Z angle is largely negated. When I was running vertically and the anchor points were much closer to the work area, I had a lot of problems with the machine and the 15mm failure which I think was in part caused by the belt slipping on the roller due to the excessive angle.
The things I think have contributed to my later successes in no particular order:
- Sanding and lubricating the spools (Belts retracted at 200 after sanding and lubrication)
- Going back to horizontal from vertical
- Aluminium extensions on all belts (Reducing possible stretch and allowing more belt to stay on the spool)
- Fixing the relative heights of the anchor points to be more level to the arms
- The steady improvement in the firmware & software
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