I am using a Foxalien Masuter Pro with the expansion kit (4080). I have used it before for laser cutting in Lightburn and struggled with directions of movement and homing. I somehow worked it out for that purpose. (Foxalien GRBL wrong Coordinates)
Now I want to start with milling and tried Millmage. I have the same troubles again. The machine is moving to the wrong direction. I tried homing to front left as well as the others. Sometimes the machine moves to the right direction but only some centimeters. Sometimes it moves only to one direction even when I use the opposite button.
My work area (stock piece) is 300x300mm and when I move the mouse over it, it is all in the positive quadrant. When I use Go to XY I have to insert negative numbers to move to that direction.
I’d like to use this machine for both MM and LB but when I change something in the console for MM I have troubles in LB. I really get crazy!
Can anyone help me? Please!
Martin
If it works in Lightburn, it should translate directly to MillMage. Make the Origin is set correctly in MillMage.
Stick with front left if you can. What does it say in the Position boxes in the top of the Move window when you Home?
Lightburn = workarea, MillMage = material. Not the same thing.
This contradicts itself. Is the little green square in the lower left corner?
The only thing that changes is the actual laser or spindle motor control. Go back to the settings that work for Lightburn and then come back ready to answer questions.
I am not at the machine for some days. Of course I “messed with the GRBL settings” as noone had a better idea and it was the only way to get it running for laser cutting. And as NicolasL in the other topic suggested, the work area in Lightburn is in the negative quadrant (-/-).
In both programs the little green square is in the lower left corner.
I’ll go back to settings which work in Lightburn and probably post the $$ settings of the console. Then I’ll try it in Millmage and give detailed behaviour of the machine. Maybe then we find the problem (I know, sometimes it’s in front of the monitor…)
I must admit, I might have a misunderstanding of the work area in MM. Just to get started I took a stock piece of 300x300. My only goal at that time (and is still yet) was to move the spindle by keyboard or move window through the whole area and to the right direction.
It is evident that one must choose a position for the origin of coordinates (of the material), so that my stock piece is within my real work area. I haven’t done that yet. It appears that it chose the front left corner of my work area as the XYZ zero point.
But I think I should be able to jog the machine to every position of the work area before doing the next step.
That is chosen for you if you have Home switches. If you don’t like that, you can move the origin. But then you have to know what you are doing to the coordinate system.
So I have the CNC router connected to my computer and run the programs in virtual machines. For LB I use the older version of Windows 10, for MM I use Windows 11. So I just choose which of the virtual machines uses the CNC machine.
I have first tried Lightburn, works perfectly:
Machine homes to front left corner.
When I say go to X=50 and Y=50 it is in the positive quadrant
(the whole work space is in the positive quadrant).
Little green square and red square are at front left corner=0/0.
Moving in move window and on keyboard are correct.
Then I did nothing but handing over the CNC machine to the Windows11 virt. machine and had that outcome for Millmage:
Little green square is in the front left corner.
The machine is homing in the front left corner.
The machine is moving to the opposite direction in X and Y (Z is good).
After homing it would only go some millimeters and stops.
The cursor is in the positive quadrant when moving over the work piece (+/+).
Using goto X=50, Y=50 the machine wants to move to the -/- quadrant and looses steps.
After lost steps I can move a little bit further but also with opposite direction keys.
Hopefully somebody will jump in and either confirm or blast me for what I am going to say next…
Maybe Lightburn has been wrong all along? In other words, flip the X and Y directions ($3 using the Machine Settings window) and turn on the CNC switch in Lightburn. Then they should be the same on both. I say this because your Foxalien Masuter Pro is a CNC machine with a bolt on laser, right?
When I got my replacement controller board for the CNC, I went through a lot of grief trying to set it up like it was before. That was before I understood the value of the Machine Settings window.
Some news: I have played around again and found a good setting (at least for the first trials of jogging in Lightburn AND Millmage)
There is just one big trap in MILLMAGE (for Lightburn it wouldn’t make any difference): It apparently sets the soft limits (or CNC origin?) to the point where it is located when turning on the machine. So I cannot move to all directions. When I send it to 0/0 it goes to the position in which it was at switching on. After homing it can move across the whole work area of the CNC machine.
BUT: The work piece lies outside by default. The CNC work area is completely in the negative quadrant (-/-); the work piece in the positive (+/+) Origin is in the front left corner of the work piece, which is the rear right corner of my work area. Discovering the XYZ 0 button helped a lot!
In Lightburn the laser would go to the right rear corner after finishing the job (set origin) which is inconvenient for my work position. Changing the origin would lead to opposite jogging directions. So I have set the finishing position to X408/Y807. Then I can easier handle it. Little red and green square are in the right rear corner.
As I don’t use “goto” in Lightburn, I don’t mind the unfamiliar negative coordinate system.
My settings:
CNC ON (in Lightburn)
Origin Right rear (in Lightburn)
Origin left front (in Millmage)
That looks good for LightBurn after setting $3 back to what it was, but the machine origin should be rear right in MillMage also - that should help with your jogging issues.
