I’ve been digging through the forums and found a few posts that were similar to my issue, but not quite; so I apologize if I’m missing something obvious or rudimentary here. Here’s what I’m having trouble with…
I’ve wanted to make the jump from using Ground Control to Makerverse with my original Maslow (starter kit, MEGA Arduino board- purchased in spring of '20, before the M2 was released.) I’ve been using it on the old firmware with Ground Control just fine for the past year.
I updated the firmware and downloaded Makerverse, and am having no software problems connecting- that’s all working just fine. My issue is, the set-up and calibration procedure seems to be completely at odds with my setup. The chains seem to be attached differently, the method of measurement is obviously new and different… for reference, I build my frame and attached my motors and chains using this, now outdated, setup guide:https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1848476/Maker-Made-Maslow-Cnc.html The chains attach to the back, you measure the distance between motors by pulling the chain tight, etc. Ground Control walked you through this in the calibration dialogues, with photos.
When pulling up the calibration dialogues within Makerverse, none of the pictures or examples seem to match my setup. I can’t seem to find a step-by-step for getting set up with the old machine. I’ll be upgrading to the M2 with the upgrade kit at some point, but in the meantime, I’d love to use my Maslow as is! (And with the firmware update, I can’t go back to Ground Control.) Am I missing something totally obvious?
Thanks so much, all. Happy to explain this poorly-described scenario in more detail.
My guess is that Makerverse isn’t super backwards compatible. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it, just that it’s probably not going to work right out of the box.
I don’t have any experience with it to be able to help overall, but if you give examples of specific places you are stuck with photos or screen shots I bet we can help some.
I’ve set up the mega with makerverse. You have to use makerverse version 1.1.2 and the associated firmware of 51.28 or higher. The precision calibration requires your frame to be square, beam straight and you need to mark the dead center spot of your workspace. You also need pretty accurate measurements of workspace from motors (beam height) and motor spacing from 8: on the left to 4: on the right. Put the sled on with the chains somewhere near center and do not try to move it with software until you have hit the reset chains button first. Then you should be able to drive the sled to dead center and hit reset chains again and don’t do it again unless you are ready to recalibrate again.
Verify the z axis moves as expected. When testing movement, have the power cord to the motors handy incase they decide to be difficult and take off. it happens. When that happens, pull the motor power plug to stop movement. put the chains back to where the sled is near the middle, run the clear eeprom command and then try it again.
Once you have movement control, then start calibration and you should be good to go. If doing precision calibration, I would do the holes and put them 100-150 mm in from the edge rather than the default 25 because if you sled isn’t weighted properly, it may fall off the side when trying to punch a hole 1" from the side.
I’m a webcontrol user currently because I am lazy and dont’ have time to recalibrate when makerverse forgets where it is sometimes between use and it has to be recalibrated. I am continually wary of the due controller that I have because it is an early shield version and will overheat and wreck stuff. I find the mega and webcontrol to work just fine for my simple needs. Happy to help further if you need.