Can anyone who has a working 2021 style metalmaslow share their encoder/z axis settings? I think I have the x and y working, haven’t done my calibration cut yet but noticed my z moves way more than web control said it would.
Can you post a picture of your sled set up. Metal maslow has kicked out a few different styles over the years.
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I saw that but wasn’t sure if that was for the x+y motors or the z?
Looking at the pic, I’d say your z axis pitch setting should be -8 for a 1:1 pulley and 8 lead screw. (Negative because how the motor is mounted)
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that is the new z axis motor that is a higher speed than the other kit sellers. You know you have the newer high speed motor if the plug for the z motor is the same as the left-right motors. The original motor had a much smaller plug.
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So I think I have these settings correct. Made some progress and thought things were going good. I’m using web control and holey firmware. Went through the getting started and measured my motor distances, set the tooth/flat spot on motor shaft to vertical, set zero and extended chains. Marked my chain link and tooth after extending chains, did my holey calibration cut and measured everything, hit calculate and save.
Now anytime I try to move the sled it tells me “unable to find valid machine position” and sets an alarm. It moved just fine before I saved the calibration.
There is a help menu in webcontrol that says “Getting Started” or something along those lines, follow that. It sounds like you may of hit “Set Zero” on the extension chains menu, that sets the chain length at zero and will give you that error. Here is another link to some useful setup videos.
So I thought that was a possibility. I went through resetting the chains per the video and I’m still getting the same thing. Everything seemed to be working well until I saved the holey calibration measurements.
Can you share the the numbers you used in the calibration? I usually write mine on the spoil board in sharpie
I can do that tonight when I get home. I bought a metric tape measure and was entering them in MM. It looked to my eye like most were fairly close to where they should be except the bottom left.
Would you share the numbers?
968,965,913,964,688,711,710,141,120,198,197,274 are my numbers in order m1 thru m12
I think I found my issue. This tape measure drops a digit once you get over one meter,I think my diagonal measurements are off by 1 meter. I’ll correct and let you know.
M8-11 are actually 1141, 1120, 1198, 1197 but it still does the same thing after entering those.
Is there a way to reset everything and start from scratch?
I would verify your motor spacing and workpiece height are reasonably close to what you measured when you started and then tape over the holes in your board and recut and measure the calibration set of holes.
I tried this, I cannot get anything to move without triggering the error. I can move both motors manually with the reset chain menu. But I cannot get the motor to move from the main menu or the calibration menu.
I haven’t been watching this thread.
after it gets a ‘can’t keep up’ error you need to reset the chains or
recalibrate to get it to a known location.
After that, to avoid getting this error, slow the feed rate, check that your
power supply isn’t having it’s voltage drop under load, and go into the settings
to change the alarm to not trigger at 2mm of error (set it to 20 or larger)
this alarm was a good idea in theory, but in practice, the machine does not move
from stoped to full speed instantly, and the code assumes that it does, so until
the firmware gets the ability to do acceleration planning, this alarm causes
more grief than it solves.
David Lang