when running the recommended frame vertically
it has issues at the top of the frame
after checking the length of the belts, I increased the height of the frame (as the belts would be plenty long enough). I then ran into issues when the maslow wouldn’t move to the bottom of the workpiece.
how can I get Maslow to the bottom of the frame? the belts are easily long enough?
Cheers
Frames can be any four anchor points within a 5500 by 5500 square. When vertical and even when horizontal you can never pull an object straight across between two ropes if there is a force down or sideways as the tension increases towards infinity as you get closer to a straight line. So that may be what is happening near the top.
The latest firmware has a good feature where the cutting area is a limited rectangle in the center of that space. The robot will stop if it is told to drive outside that limit. Its default is 4 feet by 8 feet in mm centered between the anchors in both directions. . Which firmware are you running? It is possible that you are running into that virtual fence especially if you are arranging your cutting area off center and lower.
On the right side of the arrow jog box there are two buttons that open dialogue boxes for settings and options. I think the green button next to the jog right button says options. If you click on that there is a button for work area that sets the virtual fence. If you increase the size of that the robot can move more than two feet below and above the center of the frame. I don’t have Maslow running right now so if it is not there it would be in the settings dialogue box in the button in the top right.
This is a shortcut to edit config options that are stored in the yaml file. You can get to those directly by using the Maslow options screen from a button in the top left of the main screen. Where you go update firmware. Config there opens the full yaml editor.
I hope that helps. Next time I have the robot open I’ll try to grab some screenshots
The firmware for Maslow has had some UI changes recently and as a community we have not caught up yet in the documentation. @bar where is the best place to update the getting started or UI guide right now? Also do we want to make it configurable off center? Maybe cutting area centered on an origin point or does that get too muddled? Do we want to add cutting area limit to the frame simulator? Does the coordinate system established after find anchors use the bottom two anchor points as a baseline for the x axis?
@Byron_Abbey Check out the simulator here: Anchor Point Layout Simulator It should help give a sense of the frame size’s impact on the machine
@wouldchuck The documentation is all pulled from github now. You can edit the quick start guide directly here: Maslow_4/docs/QuickStart.md at Maslow-Main · MaslowCNC/Maslow_4 · GitHub
Or you can make an issue describing the changes that you want to see made and the AI will update things for you here: Issues · MaslowCNC/Maslow_4 · GitHub
Here are screenshots showing how to set the work area
There is a green options button on the right side of the arrow box
When you click on it it will have a button for work area
You can set the virtual boundaries for maslow movement here.
Cool. I didn’t know that it already had an option to move the center
All of these dialogue boxes are changing settings in the yaml which you can get to on the fluid nc tab and then by clicking the radio button next to config. The work area should stay stable in the yaml even if you run find anchors again. You would want to reset it if you change your anchors.
where should i set “home”
I have been setting it at the bottom left (YouTube said so)
It doesn’t really matter, just in relation to how you like to set up your jobs. I have mine in the middle and build my gcode so that it starts at the center. I use a lot of odd wood sizes so it is easy to plan everything from a center point. The maslow starts at the center for a lot of things and is more accurate near the center than the edges so that is nice too. Team center. Setting up at the corner of a piece of wood is easier to make sure that you hit the placement on the wood though. I would reset it for each piece of wood though. Yay team corner.
I also prefer working from the center, especially when using offcuts or materials with non-standard dimensions. But there is one important detail: the workpiece needs to be centered very accurately within the work area.
It would be very useful to have a function for manually moving the router to a specified position by entering exact X/Y coordinates. At the moment, you can send the router to a point by right-clicking on the work surface, but this does not allow you to enter precise coordinates. It would be especially helpful for centering the workpiece and checking the alignment before starting the job.
