The Big, Bad M4 Troubleshooting Problems/Solutions Thread

[gazinux]

Check your bearings -
During initial assembling and when you have your arm disassembled check bearings are seated all the way down and square. As shown, if this bearing was raised it will strike a tooth on the gear and either add friction or downright block the gear movement.

And if it adds friction it will add it in a pulse train on/off as each gear makes and leaves the impact area. When the software reads belt tension current for a distance measurement its value will be distorted slightly for samples taken when the gear is in the impact area. This will create a noise pattern in measurement data that could have an impact on calibration and performance. So check your bearings!

[gazinux]

@gazinux

Check your bearings -

Also check your bearings after installing the motor because I see that after you tighten the four motor screws the bearings are pushed out a little from their unseated recessed position.

[jwolter]

TL;DR: Belt won’t retract? Increase the Retraction Force setting

1 belt does not want to retract?

I’m able to extend all but on one belt is not able to retract at all?

[jwolter]

Maximium width and height of frame

This is complaining about the spacing between the points in the grid being too far apart. I think that the limit is about 200mm so a 3x3 grid can be at most 200*3=600mm etc. The issue is that if the points are too far apart we risk either breaking the belts or chewing them up in the gears if the machine doesn’t have a good understanding of it’s calibration yet and tries to move too far outside the already calibrated area

[Fernando_Diaz]

that worked! thank you

[arjenschoneveld]

@jwolter

• Adjust the motor position (what is meant by this?)

hi jwolter, here is the link to the topic/solution:

0.70 Calibration - Calibration Fitness Too Low and slack belts

Major changes after moving the motors. See video:

[jwolter]

Stepper motors hot and won’t move

Trying to adjust the height back up after calibrations and the z axis won’t move shows on the machine it’s moving but doesn’t physically move the stepper motors are also very hot to the touch. Any idea of how to fix the problem or why it’s getting hot.

[jwolter]

Give Maslow Priority in Google WiFi to Fix Loss Connection

I found a fix for losing connection that I wanted to share. I had an issue with my Maslow. It stopped during a job and the Maslow wouldn’t respond. I figured out that it was losing connection. So, I gave the device priority on the network. I ran several jobs and I didn’t lose connection again. I have a Google Home and WiFi. So, here are the instructions to give a device priority on a Google WiFi network. Hope this helps. Open the Google Home app. Tap Wifi . Tap Devices and select the d…

[ronlawrence3]

Resetting (wiping out) the maslow’s software

It is sometimes useful to reset the maslow to “factory state”. There are several ways to accomplish this.

1. Via USB with included zip file.
2. Via USB or wifi with the Maslow source code and platformio
3. Others?

Via USB with included zip file
This method only works on a windows machine. You will need to attach your maslow to the computer with a USB-c cable, then extract the zip file in the release. there is a README there with instructions. This is the easiest method.

Via USB or wifi with Maslow source code and platformio
If you are not on windows or just want to use this method, you can download and install platformio (Your Gateway to Embedded Software Development Excellence · PlatformIO), then you can download the maslow source from GitHub - BarbourSmith/FluidNC: The next generation of motion control firmware - either with git or download a zip file. NOTE: if you download a ZIP it will be of the current Maslow-Main branch in git which will be the most recent release. if you want another release, first select the tag from the dropdown / tags

When you have the source, (and are on the right tag if using git) launch a command line in that directory. You can then decide which operation below you want to do, and whether you want to do this over wifi or via USB. The “options” on the below commands will be -e usb --upload-port <portname> for USB or --upload-port <ip_address> if using wifi. portname will be the device name from the output of pio device list. --upload-port <ip_address> is only needed if you are using something other than maslow.local for your maslow.

• wipe out/reset the files (index,maslow,etc, not gcode) pio run -t uploadfs <options>
• build and upload the firmware pio run -t upload <options>
• erase everything pio run -t erase <options> (you will then need to upload and uploadfs)

[jwolter]

Thanks @ronlawrence3 for this nice write-up! I copied the contents of your post and added it to the existing firmware section just to keep things tidy. Then I moved this post to the development topic.

[Tore]

Just adding this for quick reference about Error 66: Failed to open file

This does not mean that it can’t be uploaded and opened in FluidNC. The model might even show just as it should in the left window. In fact, everything seems fine until you try to run the program.

Then it shows “Error:66”

It also says “Undefined Error” in the commandwindow on the FluidNC tab.

I’ve had this happen twice.

First time there was invisible characters at the start of the NC-file. These became visible when I copied and pasted everything into PSPAD instead of looking at the file in notepad. The filename itself was 101.nc.

The second time around, I was stumped. No hidden or extra characters and the model looked just as expected.

When looking through the NC-file for the 100th time, my brain started working again. I registered that a letter from a word in parentheses had been dropped. It should have been (HØYRE), which is Viking for Right, but it said (HYRE). It then hit me that I had named the object in Norwegian when drawing it in Fusion360 and the NC-file therefore also contained the Ø. I changed the filename to right.nc, uploaded it and it ran without issues.