I received my 4.1 about 3 weeks ago and immediately started the assembly and set-up. First try was anchored to the floor and tried to run calibration, failed. I built an 8x10 frame to run it at 30 degree horizontal and tried to run the calibration again, failed. I have uploaded all the recent firmware (I think). I have run “retract all", “extend all", “apply tension” tried lowering the Z and it doesn’t move. The Z readout changes value but it does not move. I have done all the “unplug it", “move the screws with your fingers”. I set each screw to the exact same height by hand.
At this point I have an expensive cumbersome and near useless router with a plastic dinner plate attached.
I think that this is the main issue, the machine isn’t going to move until it can locate the anchor points so that is the place to start.
When it fails can you press the blue “save serial” button in the lower right of the screen and upload the file here? That will tell us more about what is going on.
Update:
I got the Z axis to move and now I’m trying calibration. I ended up wiping the files and starting over, success. Now I’m trying to run the “Find Anchors”. I have run the operation numerous times and keep getting a fail “Find anchors stopped due to low fitness”. I have checked the 3 troubleshooting recommendations generated by the program. I doubt the frame is flexing (over built). I had to disassemble the sled to troubleshoot a clearance issue and I may have reassembled the spools in the wrong order. I’m guessing this can create an issue with the sled knowing its position properly. I will attach a photo of my set up. 2 of my end anchor brackets have cracked and I had to make a field fix for them that effects the ability to put them “in” the frog mouth anchor points. Is this a problem? any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Looks like i have them 90 degrees out of sequence, time to take it apart and adjust. I ordered new anchor ends to replace the ones that broke so i can get the belts at the right altitude. Once i get this all done I’ll run the “find anchors” again and see what happens.
you can also just change the offsets in the maslow.yaml file to match your machine. As long as you don’t have problems with the sled tilting, the order doesn’t matter as much as getting the heights correct matters.
speaking of the z offsets, what is the height from your spoilboard to the bottom of where the belt end sits in the anchors? the Z offsets assume these are level. If they aren’t, the difference needs to be accounted for either in the Z offsets directly, or with the wasteboardthickness parameter
Finally made progress. Replaced the broken belt end anchors. Printed the turtle clamp, upper and lower as well as 4 new posts. Got the 4 motor spools stacked correctly and ran the “find anchors”. I spent the day running about 30 fond anchor cycles. I ran so many because I was gathering data to understand the process of calibration. I ran an assortment of spoil board thicknesses then belt retraction tensions. You may ask “why would i go through all that crap” I was gathering data to see what the machine would do when simple changes are made. It gives me a better understanding of the mechanics. I am very confused about something that happened during my education process.
Spoil board thicknesses set at 0.0
Tension set to 1050
I ran those parameters 5 times and got different failure numbers every time. High side was .4407451 lowest was .0670481. Why am i getting different numbers when I did not make any changes to any of the values?
I landed on 1050 tension because that was the one that gave me the numbers closest to 0.45.
Spoil board thicknesses set at 0.0 Tension set to 1050
I ran those parameters 5 times and got different failure numbers every time. High side was .4407451 lowest was .0670481. Why am i getting different numbers when I did not make any changes to any of the values?
what matters is the exact belt lengths that are measured, if you kept the logs
from the runs, each has an array at each pause in the calibration (look for
lines that have [{bl: 529.12, br: 533.25, tr: 533.14, tl: 535.13}, …] type of
data, I don’t remember the 4 character prefix other than it starts with C )
looking at the variations in those numbers will start to explain what’s going on
since you seem like the type to want the details, what’s going on under the
covers is that at each point, the machine pulls the belts tight and measures
their lengths (that’s the bl,br,tl,tr numbers) and then it runs a solver to try
and find anchor point locations that those numbers all match. since this is the
real world (including things like the belt stretching), there is no
mathmatically perfect fit, so some of the process is “well, that guess at
anchors didn’t work, let’s randomly move and anchor point a bit and see if that
improves it or not”
sorry for not remembering, but what sort of current limit do you need to
reliably retract all the belts in one try?
If by current limit you mean tension in the config should I turn the number down to the absolute minimum to retract and se what that is? Or are you asking if all the belts retract evenly?
If by current limit you mean tension in the config should I turn the number
down to the absolute minimum to retract and se what that is? Or are you asking
if all the belts retract evenly?
yes, how far can you turn it down and get all belts to be able to retract in one
go (not hitting retract multiple times, just extending the belts and hitting
retract once)
Disconnect the anchors and find the lowest setting to completely retract the belts in one go?
correct. the best I’ve seen has been in the 600 range, below 900 is considered
good. above 1800 is considered horrid
the 1050 you are listing isn’t horrid, but it’s not great. but the question is
how reliably do the belts retract at different limits. If they struggle, then
there is a possibility that they won’t pull all the way tight and that would
throw off the calculations.
I’ll restart the machine later today and do a single find anchor, save the serial and post. Sugestions for a retraction force setting prior to running? Is lower better? Vertically mounted.
I’ll restart the machine later today and do a single find anchor, save the
serial and post. Sugestions for a retraction force setting prior to running?
Is lower better? Vertically mounted.
yes, lowe is better beause it stretches the belts less, with you doing full
retraction <700, I’d say try it with 700
I was reminded in another thread that if you don’t run the Z all the way down
and hit set z stop (in the settings popup) it’s possilbe that the machine thinks
it’s somewhere odd and can cause problems.
between the buttons and the log there are two sets of tiny numbers, one is the
machine coordinates (Xm,Ym, Zm) and are based on the center being 0,0. the other
three are the coordinates you are at in relation to home (both xy home and Z
home)
check that those are sane or run the router down as far as it can go (with no
bit or room for the bit to clear) and hit set z stop
