Several wierd issues

Yesterday i had good success in making parts. Right at the end of the day when i retracting the belts one did not. It turns out instead of retracting it turned out to the end and jammed. Nothing broke or mangled.

I took the arm apart to release it and do an inspection, put it back together and then it just started wierd issues.

On apply tension it complained about being off more than 12mm and required calibration. It took multiple tries to get it to calibrate. But the serial console only displayed the fitness details once, after that it only gave the message about not using this config.

Eventually it gave the message that it was calibrated when i hit the calibrate button on the config screen.

Then i tried making something and it ran for about 2 minutes and i think it had a brain siezure or kernel panic… the web inerface lost connection. I power cycled it and called it a day.

The one arm that stayed slack did a lot of just quivering too. It seemed normal on extract and retract.

sounds like the magnet may have ended up in the wrong place when you reassembled
that arem.

David Lang

Out of the box, the web interface checks for connection every X seconds and displays an error if it doesn’t detect the maslow. I’ve found it much more helpful to turn this feature off through the preferences (think that’s what it’s called) in the top right corner of the web interface.

I think a check for a flipped magnet is to mount the machine and tension the belts, then release tension and re-tension them again. Look at the output the machine gives you for how far off the belts are from where it thinks they should be. Repeat this process and see if it’s putting out roughly the same offset if you will (±1mm or so). If the magnet is flipped the numbers will be all over the place.

Kyle wrote:

I think a check for a flipped magnet is to mount the machine and tension the
belts, then release tension and re-tension them again. Look at the output the
machine gives you for how far off the belts are from where it thinks they
should be. Repeat this process and see if it’s putting out roughly the same
offset if you will (±1mm or so). If the magnet is flipped the numbers will be
all over the place.

There are two different problems.

If the magnet slips, then extending/retracting will give different zeros.

If the roller is flipped end to end, or swapped to the other side, you are much
more likely to get the ‘off by xx mm’ type of error. That error can also be
caused by poor connections to the encoders (on the non-JST encoders, plug in the
network cables all the way and hot glue them in place) and can also be caused by
static electricity in the wrong place at the wrong time (there is a pin on the
encoder chip that should have been tied to ground, but wasn’t, you can put a
blob of solder to connect the pin to the nearby capacitor chip to solve this
one)

David Lang

Along the lines of having a troubleshooting basic info template, a troubleshooting flowchart would probably help provide people with a place to start. Kinda like you find in an appliance repair manual.

1 Like

I did find an issue with one of the arms motor being loose so I took it apart and tightened it up.
I switched the arms around thinking that one sensor is not good and the slack arm is still in the same position and I am sure that it is not the one that was in that position.
The interface still does not display fitness values after the first run. It does not report on finding a good fitness although it must have because after several calibration runs it gives the popup that it has a good config and and calibration does not have to be run anymore.

I got everything happy and about 15 seconds into cutting a part I see this error:
[MSG:WARN: Position error on Bottom Right axis exceeded 15mm while running. Error is 15.603mm Counter: 6]

[MSG:WARN: Previous error was 15.603mm]

<Run|MPos:-288.688,161.250,4.810|FS:2667,0|Ov:100,100,100|SD:0.22,/sd/kitchen-rib.nc>

[MSG:ERR: Emergency stop! Stopping all motors]

1 Like

This sounds to me like the classic issue of dust in the ethernet ports :confused:

1 Like

This is a jst connector maslow. It ran great Saturday. But for 2 days now it is not happy.

1 Like

Oh very strange. Is the issue always on the bottom right?

Can you try taking the cable off that arm and swapping it with a different arm?

I swapped the cable from the 2 bottom arms.

I am trying to test it out but now it wants me to run calibrate again. I have saved off different successful yaml files and they are the same.

My frame has not changed. Can I get past this message or is it a symptom of other problems?

[MSG:INFO: Measured waypoint 2]
[MSG:INFO: Center point deviation: TL: 0.000 TR: 0.000 BL: 14.271 BR: -21.394]
[MSG:ERR: Center point deviation over 12.000mm, your coordinate system is not accurate, maybe try running calibration again?]

1 Like

Oh! I have a theory!

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.

1 Like

Ok well i will just take it all apart and glue in all of the magnets.

1 Like

No, don’t take it all apart yet unless the test fails!

Did you run the test?

[MSG:INFO: Retracting all belts]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Right pulled tight with offset -1.750]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Left pulled tight with offset -4.477]
[MSG:INFO: Top Left pulled tight with offset -6.871]
[MSG:INFO: Top Right pulled tight with offset -12.583]
[MSG:INFO: Extending all belts]
[MSG:INFO: All belts extended to 1800.000mm]
[MSG:INFO: Retracting all belts]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Left pulled tight with offset -0.140]
[MSG:INFO: Top Right pulled tight with offset -0.086]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Right pulled tight with offset -0.140]
[MSG:INFO: Top Left pulled tight with offset -0.118]

1 Like

I did it again.
[MSG:INFO: Retracting all belts]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Left pulled tight with offset -0.011]
[MSG:INFO: Top Left pulled tight with offset 0.011]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Right pulled tight with offset -0.021]
[MSG:INFO: Top Right pulled tight with offset -0.043]
[MSG:INFO: Extending all belts]
[MSG:INFO: Retracting all belts]
[MSG:INFO: Top Left pulled tight with offset -0.011]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Left pulled tight with offset 0.000]
[MSG:INFO: Top Right pulled tight with offset 0.032]
[MSG:INFO: Bottom Right pulled tight with offset 0.032]

1 Like

I did take it all apart again and checked the magnets and I could not get any of them to move at all.

1 Like

Darn, yeah those results say no magnet slip.

What is your frame like? Is it possible that it could be flexing?

I don’t think so but here is a picture

(attachments)

1 Like