Hello I have been chasing some gremlins in my machine… I am loosing & gaining step I guess, mostly on the Y axis, I have made a couple ornaments that turn out perfect then the last cutout on a few seem to not go low enough and cut off the bottom of a banner engraved above.
I was replacing a JST plug at the Y stepper the wires seemed rough and if I messed with that area it seemed to make the machine “stutter” once and while.
At one point I had the Y unplugged and the X plugged in. Moved side-side no problem.
But if I tried the Y axis I head the X stepper clunk very lightly. It appears that the X stepper is energizing when I use the Y axis. (and vice versa).
When this happens to power the Y axis I can feel the crossover shaft that drives gear pulleys tension.
Is it normal to have the other axis power up if not using? Most would never even notice this if not looking for it as movement drowns out the faint click/clunk.
The only reason I think one would want this is so the “lazy unpowered” stepper doesn’t get wiggled around while the X is zipping back and forth.
Machine is Atomstack A5 heavily modded with lasertree 20W. Has the original “laserbox 1.0” main board with a limit switches added. As well extended wires so I could add drag chains.
It’s likely that the acceleration values are on the edge. If you have more of a load on X, by increasing the module size (mass), acceleration values need to be modified to accommodate the increase in the X axes mass.
Try lowering them by 25% and see if that helps with the issue.
Thanks Daryl I have tried this and the steppers will lock up full time. I will still need to do some torture test to see if I can reproduce issues.
The issue is of course that I can’t move the gantry manually without forcing steppers. But will test this a little bit.
Thanks Jkwilborn I will play with these setting if I continue to have the problems. It makes sense as that module is a bit more bulky and has a bit of weight to it. Plus the drag chain adds resistance.
My x max rate is set to 6,000.000 and the acceleration is at 1,000.000. So maybe drop it down to 750.000?
You can try it, I’d suspect just lowering it about 25% will tell you if you’re on the right track. It won’t hurt anything to modify these… worst case is you loose steps and sometimes makes a terrible racket.
