Motors wiggling but not moving 5 degrees during calibration

I just finished putting together the temporary sled.
I tried the first step in calibration but my motors wiggle back and fort and do not change when I click 5 degrees or 1 degree.

Motor test pass for all all 3 motors.

How did you finish calibration?

Which PCB version do you have? How much is the wiggle, is it a significant fraction of a one gear tooth, or is it very small?

I had a little trouble with my left motor. I used the level bubble technique and right motor worked great. Left motor would do 5 and 1 degree increments fine but .1 degree it jittered a bit each time then jumped close to the 1 degree movement after what was supposed to be only .3 degrees. I eventually got it but it was a little temperamental. I haven’t measured any cuts to see how my accuracy is yet.

Edit: bubble technique Sprocket Alignment Technique

Capture1

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It is very small, not a complete gear tooth. It just moves back and forth so the results is 0 rotation. It just wiggles.

Motor test is ok, I read similar posts in the forum, and the power is connected right see pictures and screenshots. I am totally new to the maslow, is there a setting that it wrong?

Someone else mentioned that the arduino should not be open, and it is not open it is closed. I restart the computer and only use Ground control open at one time.

I would like to use the bubble technique, unfortunately the motors just move a little bit back and forth… or they just do not move… If it moves a little to the right, then it goes back and moves a little to the left. so the total rotation is 0.

Not sure what to do.

I’m not trying to insult your mechanical capabilities but did you get the gear sprokets tightened so that the Allen screw was pressed against the flat on the gear shaft? Just trying to rule out the easiest fix.

I wasn’t sure, so I just checked and there were tight and flush with the gear shaft.
No offense taken, I do not have good mechanical abilities. Just trying to get it fixed.

Should I check PID values?

If the motor test is ok then we should be right?.. But still I cannot figure out how to carry out the calibration. Everytime I start ground control it gives me a warning saying that the chain length is not set. I click continue, is this the normal “modus operandi”?

Still, I try everytime the motors just wiggle.

In my experience, leaving the PID values alone is best. I’ll save those for some time in the future when there is a lot of time to experiment. I think with a standard Maslow kit, everything should work with the standard settings.

I’ve found that it’s best to wait for the motor to stop ‘growling’ with each click of a button before clicking again. Too, there isn’t much visible change from a 0.1 degree movement, but they do accumulate after several. I rarely use 0.1 degrees, though - ‘close enough is good enough’ :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think I know what is going on. We just started shipping PCB version 1.2 and there are some improvements to the design but the firmware still needs to catch up to take advantage of them.

Will you give this test firmware a go? (it will only work with 1.2). cnc_ctrl_v1.zip (82.0 KB)

I think it might fix the behavior you are seeing

Give until tomorrow, I am stuck at work today in meetings…

BTW, because I use FreeCAD to generate my gcode, so naturally I wanted to use a fully dimensioned engineering drawing of the final sled. All the files I see with the Maslow community are svg and dxf. I couldn’t find any step, IGS, or IGES of the frame, the sled or the router.

Should I work to produce this 3D drawings and produce a dimensioned drawings?
Or maybe the team has already done it?

You can find links to the fully dimensioned OnShape drawings for the frame designs here:

They were done before the community garden existed so they’ve gotten a little buried. I will try to move them into the garden as soon as I have a second

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Tried version 1.13 of the firmware but it did not solve the issue. The motors do not move, just make a sound but do not move. I’ll downgrade to previous versions of GC and firmware and try tomorrow

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I have this problem too… The left motor only went clockwise… Also, the motors sound very different from each other… The left is low pitched, and the right is high pitched. I went ahead and cut the sled without resolving this problem, now I have to revisit it… I’ll upload the new version first though!

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Hi Bar:

noticed that when it wiggles, it does wiggle harder in one direction more than the other. So using pliers and being super gentle I manged the set the sprocket gear in vertical position.

I has able to finish the calibration.


Let me be clear firmware version 1.13 did not work.
So I used version 1.12 and dealt with the wiggling.

I was able to cut the sled and other components. Tolerance wise, I am ok.

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