After receiving a replacement PC board (faulty z axis controller) and re-configuring my frame I ran an 800x800 with a 5x5 grid and got a fitness level of 0.6770475661798762.
I have no idea if that is good enough but at least the calibration completed successfully, what would be considered a good fitness level?
What I did find though was as the sled moved further to the left (especially top left) and less so further to the right it would lift up off the worksurface. I’ve seen other posts mentioning this problem but didn’t see a specific solution.
My setup is vertical with about an 18 degree slope, I have space restrictions as I’ve parked the frame in a rebated corner of my garage which I have tried to sound proof as that wall is the boundary wall to the neighbours property.
Attached is the Maslow-serial log from that calibration and a short video of the sled lifting. Maslow-serial.log (43.0 KB)
Might need to increase the angle of frame to 20 or 25 deg for gravity to help some with sled lift. There is also discussions on changing arm order to minimize tilt. And finally some ideas on making anchor mount points more near parallel to arm heights.
I’ve thought about changing the arm order so that the TL and TR arms are lower down the “centre of gravity” of the router because it looked to me like that was part of the problem. I assume all I need to do is manually adjust the Z heights in the settings file.
I’m also contemplating physically adjusting each anchor point height so that the belts remain parallel to the worksurface so then the anchor point Z values would all be set to zero.
I’ll have to see how much more slope I can achieve with the constraints I have in the space I’m trying to constrain myself to without reconfiguring my garage.
I’ve also got this problem - exactly the same. Have tried arms in lots of different positions but still no go. Same re: replacement board, still unable to finish calibration on anything larger than 5x5 also..
Yeah anything more than the 5x5 grid for calibration and it would hang so would have to just pull the plug from the wall.
There must be a solution to all these problems because people are cutting stuff out and building projects but so far all I’ve been doing is marking time with dud PC boards, dodgy calibration, sifting through forums and generally beginning to regret taking a punt on this.
Very frustrating at the moment.
I’ve thought about changing the arm order so that the TL and TR arms are lower
down the “centre of gravity” of the router because it looked to me like that
was part of the problem. I assume all I need to do is manually adjust the Z
heights in the settings file.
yes
another thing to try is to make the bottom of the sled slipprier, either with
tape or wax
Yup, that should do it. You do really need more than 18 degrees of slope to keep things flat normally, but I bet that adjusting the height of the anchor points can overcome that.
Let us know how it works so it can help other people in the future!
I have the same challenge. My anchors are 3 inches above my work-piece. When cutting in the corners, I pushed the sled down by hand with minimal force. I plan to lower the anchors. If that doesn’t help, I may look to add weights to my sled just like the old M4, not ideal but a possible solution.
I was under the impression that it could work at 15 degrees but I’ll try and maximize the slope within the contraints I have in the space I have in my garage.
I’ll also reconfigure the arms so that TL and TR are the bottom 2 and I want to adjust my anchor points so that the belts remain parallel to the work surface at all times.
I’ll also wax the sled although I don’t think that was the issue because my work surface is a 17mm thick film coated plywood board so already pretty “slippery”. Of course it won’t be as “slippery” with the plywood/mdf I eventually cut.
With regards to calibration, what is considered an optimal “fitness”, for my 800x800 with a 5x5 grid calibration it was 0.677. I tried a 1200x600 9x9 but it hung at some point.
Lastly what is the difference between retraction and calibration force and what are the optimal values, is lower better so long as the fitness level is acceptable?
The retraction force is used just when pressing the “Retract All” button, the calibration force is used when taking measurements during the calibration process.
The Retract All force just needs to be high enough to retract the belts fully. Generally lower is better because it reduces stress on the machine but it’s not really a big deal.
The calibration force roughly corresponds to how tight the belts will be while cutting so if you are finding that your belt tension is too high or too low while cutting you can try reducing or increasing that value during calibration. If it’s too low and the belts don’t get fully tight when taking measurements then the calibration won’t be accurate.
Well this is becoming frustrating, I switched the order of the arms and reassembled everything and bugger me if the one z-axis stepper motor is not working. Did the usual switch the cables and determined it’s the PC board and not the motor.
I realise that the PC boards are not very robust when it comes to having to unplug everything to do repair jobs, swap arm order etc so I’m very careful when I unplug and re connect all the cables.
It’s same one as the original PC board I received in the kit (nearest to the power cord) . If I jiggle the cable it works again so must be a bad connection or something but as it’s so touchy can’t be relied upon to use in anger on a cut.
I’m now 0 for 2 for dodgy PC boards, is there something I can do to fix the PC board I have or just order another one and hope for best?
I will DM you a code for a new one right now. There was a batch that were all not soldered well
The good news is that we have new ones in stock that I’m super confident have that issue fixed and the factory is very clear on what they need to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Was there ever a fix for this? I am experiencing my sled lifting every time I get the code to run to cut a job. It does not do that for calibration. I tried retracting and extending again, increasing the speed of the router. No dice.
My frame is in vertical position, roughly 20 degrees from vertical. I am currently cutting with a 1/4 inch router tip.
Should I try the 1/8? What speeds do people use with that? Max stepdown and stepover. I normally use the 1/2 diameter rule (1/8” stepdown and stepover) but I can’t see how this could be reasonable to be considered faster than the original Maslow
Has anyone tried adding weights onto their sled? The old Maslow had bricks at the bottom, and I had success with a bungie with on the top going up and dangling a weight over the top. There has to be some fixes to this.
I had a similar problem when running vertically. I think 20 degrees slope is not enough, min is probably 25-30. I also tried a counterweight over the top which improved it but still had a problem.
