Ready for a bit of handholding pretty please. :-)

Troubleshooting
1

Hello,

Have put the thing together, made a basic frame, ran calibration on an older FW, running calibration on the 88 FW as we speak.
Figured a basic project that I want to build that requires nothing but a flat board with some holes in it.
Being completely unfamiliar with this machine except putting it together some months ago, I am wondering how it works with the placement of objects on the working surface.
I had the understanding that it might be beneficial to make the frame have a structure surrounding the workpiece with the same thickness as the workpiece, so there is a layer of OSB surrounding the designated workpiece area where I will be mainly cutting plywood.
My first concern is making the machine cut out the most optimal SQUARE area for the workpiece, the OSB surround is intentionally too big for this specific task because I wanted to be absolutely certain that the machine defines the most optimal surface area to work in.

Does this make sense?
How do I make the machine cut out the most optimal workspace by itself without messing it up by doing some rookie mistake?

Edit:
Also, the calibration process takes many hours, just like the first time with the previous FW, and the memory of the unit seems a bit limited, is there anything I can do to improve the process?

Would not mind going for an attempt to do some cuts at this point, but at this speed it seems I may not be able to complete the calibration today…

Edit:
Restarting the calibration process again, wishlist item:
Is there some way to avoid running the retract/extend cycle every single time?
Or is it enough to just make the belts extract a few cm?
The process is noticeably quicker to achieve some progress each time, but it seems I have to run this a few times to get started. Have made my first gcode file and made certain it is supposed to be centered, waiting for yet another calibration process to run its course.

Finally got up to 0.15 something where it seems to have stagnated completely.

Edit3:
… REALLY bad idea to extract the belts just a few cm befor running the process again. REALLY bad idea.

2

Been starting the calibration process and let it run a few times.
It seems to keep running for hours on end each time.

Meanwhile I am trying to figure out which CAM software I actually like, So far I am leaning slightly towards the offerings from Vectric.

Briefly tested:
CamBam
Inkscape
EstlCAM
Carbide Create v7
And some online browser based ones.

The Maslow 4 seems like a great project with some really smart people behind it, but I want higher precision, a more compact setup, and to build more and tinker less.
At this point I am just about getting ready to cut my losses and try some other options, my time has a price too.

Spoiler

Seriously starting to consider getting the Ooznest WorkBee Z1+ 15001500 with the Vectric VCarve software, the price is several times the cost of the M4. It has a work surface of 12701270 that allows me to feed it full boards of plywood from the ends. The Shapeoko 5 PRO is significantly more expensive for me.

Edit:
Going to bed, it is still trying to do stuff 6 hours since I started the process.
Here’s the log.
Maslow-serial (2).log (1.7 MB)

1 Like
3

Looking at the log, there is for sure something funky going on with the data. The calibration process will never be able to find an answer if the info that it is starting with doesn’t make sense.

The most likely reason for the data to not make sense is that one of the magnets could be slipping in one of the rollers.

If you do Retract All then Extend All to extend the belts out to full length and then Retract All again what numbers does it print out?

If they aren’t all close to zero then the issue could be that one of the magnets is lose and that could result in the kinds of error you are seeing.