I have tried to use that button back when it was set up as a desktop but I wasn’t sure if it was working correctly because webcontrol did not close. If I recall the cpu was still operating around 100% but none of the buttons were active once I pressed it. I’m thinking that may have been one of the reasons why sometimes it would not start correctly the next time?
anything you do from a web page loaded on a nearby computer with the webcontrol server running on the pi connected to the maslow will be as if you were running it from the raspberry pi. Go ahead a try it again from the other machine web page.
1 Like
Genius!!! Thank you.
I got the z axis calibrated to the “faster” motor but wouldn’t mind supercharging that. Used a dial indicator and verified it was accurate.
I’m thinking there must be spring loaded pens you can use for the triangular calibration and not have to run the router on wood. Problem I have is I can’t go forward until I get my AC for the dodge demon so I can move all the cars out of the way. thanks for all the help!
Jerry
1 Like
you can 3d print a sharpie holder and use that instead of the router for the calibration if you want, just make sure it is centered where the router would be. After that you can put some masking tape (blue, yellow, orange, green, or tan colored specialty masking tapes work well) over it and do it again if you need to rerun it. Painters tape or masking tape also works for the cuts if you used your router. I tape over the holes for the holey calibration when I run a second and third time.
note that if the weight of the sled is signficantly different between the marker
and the router it will affect the amount that the chains sag and stretch and the
calibration won’t be accurate with the different weight.
David Lang
1 Like
just to pile on more to the calibration advice. it is usually a good idea to do a couple of calibration routines to dial things in. it may also be necessary to re-calibrate from time to time. as such you will end up with a bunch of holes in your waste board in or around the same area. this will make it hard to measure the distances between them. one thing i do is cover over the holes with blue painters tape between each calibration run. that way i always have a nice clean hole to measure off of.
Once you are done calibrating (and cutting whatever it is you are cutting), you could always fill in those holes with a bit of wood filler. A quick light sand once it dries, and you don’t have all the holes anymore and can recalibrate as needed. The painter’s tape works too, just another thought.
Thanks for all the great advice. I made a spring loaded mini-sharpie “bit” that I plan to put in my router spindle. The only negative might be that I’ll have to have the router raised higher than normal so hopefully that won’t affect anything. My waste board at this time has no holes or cuts in it but I’ll put resin paper over it anyways. I purchased different color pens for comparison between runs.
this should not affect calibration, the worst that you could see is at the top
center it may tip away from the workpiece a bit.
Another option to consider is cheap foam boards (insulation panels), sometimes
they are cheaper than sheet wood.
David Lang
1 Like
if using the fill method i would be cautious when using HSS bits. some filler is extremely hard or abrasive. it will dull or chip a cutting edge really fast. if using carbide this shouldn’t be a problem though.
True, bit if it is just the holes made during calibration in the spoil board, there shouldn’t bee too many of them, and they are usually on the outskirts of the spoil board, so shouldn’t be too much of an issue. I have some good gouges in my spoil board now from projects (some that went awry), that I wouldn’t fill in for that reason.
it was successive calibration attempts that i was thinking of. i recalibrate fairly regularly (3-4x per month) and as a result have cut many holds in the same spots. i guess its not an issue of you replace your spoil board often but ive been using the same one for a couple of years and have the equivalent of 80 calibration holes. i wound up drilling a 2” counter bore where my calibration holes land and just covering over the recess with the tape.
That completely makes sense if you are recalibrating that much. I only do it if something seems off, or I make significant changes to the setup (i.e. new frame, new RPi, etc.).
the numbers in the calibration should only change if the machine changes.
However, if the machine loses it’s position (shutdown, etc) then something needs
to be done to get the machine back to a known position.
Calibration is one way to do it, but all that is really needed is to get the
machine to a known position.
This is where you see people talking about marking chain links, setting a
sprocket tooth to 12 o’clock and resetting the chain lengths.
In theory this is as good as calibration, in practice, it’s almost as good. The
calibration correction means that when the chains are at the specified length
(1651mm by default) the sprocket tooth is not quite at the 12 o’clock position
so following this process introduces a tiny amount of error, but it’s a
consistant error every time.
This would take a firmware change to fix.
David Lang
Admittedly I calibrate… excessively. The most my calibration has been out is by 1 - 1.5%. My machine is in my basement. Even though I have a dehumidifier running, it sees large swings in humidity between summer and winter. I also suspect that there is movement in the floor as the ground water level rises and falls and the ground freezes and thaws. So its probably a combination of the wood in my machine shrinking and swelling and the frame flexing as the floor moves.
In the end though, im really only chasing a very small percentage of change that utlimately doesnt have a lot of bearing on quality of what I am making. So I’mprobably wasting a lot of time 
1 Like
Yeah… I’m a bit over-obsessive with calibrationfor some reason. It’s a result of spending a lot of time trying to improve my machine and just not knowing when to quit. I have to come to terms with “good enough”.
2 Likes