Hello,
First, forgive me as I am very new at this and fear I may have bitten off more than I can chew so to speak with this kit.
Not sure how much detail it needed but short version is I bought a Maslow kit some time (months) ago and started setting it up but had to pause in the middle and am now picking it back up. I am now stuck on the Z axis and how to zero/calibrate it. I’ve searched and read everything I can find that appears relevant but am still stuck. From what I can tell there are now several Z axis options available so attached is a picture of the one I have for reference. I am using the suggested (at the time anyway) Rigid R2200 router with the fixed base.
I’ve been unable to find much documentation in the way of the Z axis setup other than turn it on and set the pitch which I did and used the default 3.17. However, using the Z axis control to test things I only seem to get about half of the movement I expect. For example, moving .5 inches up gets me somewhere in the neighborhood of .25 inches of travel as measured from underneath the sled to the bottom of the router chuck. Does this mean the pitch is wrong? If so, how do I determine what it should be?
When I try the triangular calibration the sled moves to the correct position and lowers the bit but it doesn’t lower it enough to actually cut. I suspect the zero is wrong as I really don’t know what zero should be. At first I tried setting zero at full depth but decided that was obviously wrong after putting a bit in so I manually went up in .25 inch increments until the bit was just above the material but that results in the no cut as I said before.
Are there instructions or a guide for zeroing/calibrating my Z axis that I have overlooked?
zero should be the bit just touching the material, negative positions are moving
away from the workpiece, positive positions are going down into the workpiece.
what is your Z axis mechanism? the 3.17 is 1/8" which matches the original kit’s
8 pitch lead screw. If you have a different mechanism, you will need to adjust
it accordingly.
make sure your router mount is latched closed, but it isn’t tight so the router will move up and down, but not wiggle side to side.
make sure the orange button is engaged to the lead screw and the router notch is attached to the other end of the orange button / slide connection
based on your picture, 3.17 is correct for your z pitch. If that is wrong, you can change it until it works… you won’t hurt anything, it just won’t be correct if it is wrong.
in webcontrol, press the z axis button on the right. in the window that pops up, change the move distance to 10 mm or if inches, 0.5 inches is a good movement distance. move up and down and verify all parts are engaged properly. Zero the z axis, as mentioned, when the bit is even with the bottom of the sled by clicking the zero button in the zaxis window.
once that is done, then you can go back and forth to the settings menu to alter the zaxis pitch if it isn’t right.
Since all the stock rigid routers have the same screw, check your cables and verify your zmotor defaults are set correctly in your configuration. If your encoder steps/rev are not the default value, you could be off there.
Thanks for the replies.
I will double check all of those things. I did loosen the clamp until it seemed to move freely but there is a bit of side to side wiggle.
I didn’t change any other settings related to Z axis but will verify they are default values. I think I have a better understanding of the zero now and will redo that when I get off work today.
Just wanted to come back and say thanks for the help. I was finally able to set the zero properly and make some initial test cuts. This is primarily for my wife’s yard art business and she cut her first order on it today! Much better than using a projector to trace the design and cut with a jig saw for sure.
