Hi After calibrating the M4.1 I ran my first Gcode and a few things are not going well.
First of all the machine is not making a clean cut. it looks bouncy (see pics) and after a wile it stopped with a error about being 15 mm off.
After that I was unable to retract all four belts to start over, bottom left didn’t retract. after trying to restart couple of times it finally did so I was able to setup M4.1 to restart.
I figuered that I was maybe cutting to deep per pass so I changed depth per pass to 3mm ( 6mm bit cutting 18mm MDF).
But 1/4 into the new attempted it stopped again, I saved the log file this time.
Again the machine was unable to retract all belt and this time the upper left belt was not moving. I could extract it when hitting extract all though.
Again after a few tries I was able to reset.
Some others with vertical frames have expired jittered cuts if the frame lean angle is to small. Original recommendation was 15 degrees but I think it’s now recommended over 20
Hi Bar,
I ran the test and un- replugged all wires.
Test passed.
I changed incline to 25 degrees and recalibrated as suggested by Dano and md8n.
Ran Gcode again and still messy cuts and 15 mm e step error in top right corner of work area. Sheetsize is 1200x600mm.
How is the tension in your belts? This looks to me like it is maybe physically not getting to where it needs to go possibly because the tension in the belts is too high.
I do not have a M4 yet, but I have had similar experiences with jittery cuts on my M2, which is on a 15 degree vertical. Technically, the M4 is capable of much faster and deeper cuts that my M2, but I think you may just be asking a bit too much of it.
Even though the two machines are very different, the constraints of physics remain. I have found that if I try to plunge too deep and/or feed too fast, then the wood starts to guide the machine and it becomes a battle which causes these jittery motions. My M2 won’t stop for errors, there are no sensors to do such a thing, so it is a matter of watching what is happening and using my own knowledge and skills to compensate.
Here are a couple of suggestions that I would try:
Lift your z as high as it will go, and set your z-zero there, and then run the g-code again. It is not going to cut, because your bit is too high, but it will follow the cut lines of the job. If it does this successfully, then your machine health would seem to be fine. If it still errors out even though the bit is not touching the wood, then something is wrong in the machine setup.
Slow down and decrease your depth per pass. Again, I have a totally different machine than you do, so the settings that work for you will be different than mine, but I do find that a reduced (medium) rate tends to work better. I don’t do more than 1mm per pass, typically. On softer woods like pine or mdf, birch ply, etc, I do a speed rate of 762mm/m. On harder woods I would reduce my depth per pass to 0.7mm or even 0.5mm, and reduce the feed rate to 500mm/m, or even lower sometimes.
Thank you Jeremiad for your elaborate reply! I’ll try your suggestions and see what happens.
In the meantime I made a fresh start by recalibrating again. And it accurred to me that while calibrating the lower right motor is pulling on the belt and is moving back and forward.
This is probably meant to happen to test the tention in the belt and calibrating the flex of the frame, but it seems only in the lower right and not all four or lower two. Also the entire M4 is wiggling. @Bar is that normal? see videos.
And You also suggested that the belts are maybe too tight. How can I loose this tention?
There isn’t a direct way to loosen the tension, but this setting controls how hard the belts pull during the calibration process which indirectly sets the tension.
