New to MillMage:
I have a fox alien 4040 pro, frame size 400mm x 380mm… when I do a ‘frame’ or ‘start’ the machine head immediately heads towards the right rear and eventually locks when it hits the limit switches. I have been able to edit the g code so it now homes to the front, but it still tried to go out of bounds when I do a trace.
have you got ignore out of bounds enabled under device settings
also try select all just to make sure there is nothing out side of your work area
with it being on it will stop it trying to cut any nodes out of your work area
eg a minute node in ur design that isn’t visible on screen, can happen using other peoples designs etc
i always leave it turned on , which means something else is your issue
It looks like you have your work area set up to be the entire machine’s bed size. If you set your origin to 0,0 at say the middle of the bed, your machine will presume that point to be where the green box is. If it then has to traverse more than half the bed further to get to the paths you have selected, then it will run out of room. Many machines have Soft Limits to prevent this - the machine knows how far it can go, but some don’t.
Once your project is finalized, I’d recommend reducing the Project Setup area down to the exact footprint of your work and/or moving your paths closer to the origin. You can select all, Group, then use the Arrange menu to move everything to the corner quickly.
I would also like to see what you have set in your Zero Point Configuration for your machine, as @wanderingtruckie mentioned.
These are boxes i created using the box tool in the program… i used the alignment tool to space them out, grouped them together then center align them with the outer box. selected all and then tried to frame them. The machine still goes to the far right side when it tried to frame… it does not move in the y axis.
i made the box (outer one) smaller than the actual size of wood block i have mounted on the spoilboard. The block i am using is roughly 4x4 inches… and the inner black i created is roughly 2.63x1.418 inches.. its not an actual project, i am just trying to set this up so i can learn the controls and to trouble shoot issues like the framing issue.
No, I do not have the entire work bed… my machine is 15.75"x14.96" I only set the project up to be 4x4 inches. and i only made the design to be 2.6792x1.4184 inches… just something to get it to frame and jog… something i can learn with.
So I learned something… I am using a replacement mother board for my CNC machine… I had to switch the limit switch plugs from the positive connections to the negative on the board… and then change my coordinates to $3=5 and $23=3 to get it to home correctly… it now moves to the front of the machine, and to the left side, with the z axis going up instead of down… but it still is not framing… now it doesn’t move when it frames.. before it only moved to the right on the x axis. Instead it am getting a message of sys.aborts. From what i can tell that is the board resetting its self. But i don’t think it should, it has not moved to hit any limit switches or had any surge in the power. I do have a 24v power block for the spindle and everything is connected correctly… i have double checked several times now. It’s plugged directly into the wall, no surge blocks or extension chords used.
Also, side note, current look at my console
And current machine settings:
Does it Jog in the proper directions? Is there an Error or Alarm message in the Console window?
You did not say if this was during Jog or Home. You can reverse it without messing up the rest of your settings by using the Machine Settings window.
$3 = Jog
$23 = Home
I can home it now, and it goes it in the correct corner. I can also jog it in the correct directions. The only issue now is getting it to frame.
When i go to frame, after selecting the object… and of course setting up the operations. It still goes to the right on the x axis… I have managed to get everything else to work. I runs along the x axis until it hits the limit switch and then it stops… the code I get in the console is sys.abort… and thats from it bouncing off of the limit switch.
I have check, created a new project and made sure there are no other entities on in or out of bounds that would make it try to frame it. the only item showing is the one single rectangle i have drawn on the 4x4 project.
Below is a screen cap… bottom left corner you see the info x:0.433, y: 0552 …which is where the object on the project board is resting. Also please note, I did a CTL+A to select all and it shows only one object is selected.
Side note… i tried using millmage program on my laser engraver to do a trace and it does the same thing on the x axis… but using lightburn for both the laser and the cnc mill to frame a job, it actually framed like it is supposed on both the cnc and the laser engraver i have. This seems to be an issue with the millmage program… both the laser and cnc mill try to go out of bounds while in millmage but they do not do that in lightburn.
Ran this test after the last post…
sometimes it can also be a connector on the wrong way round, causing it to travel in wrong direction, I did it once, by turning connector round it resolved the problem
now thats def an odd one, what version of MM are you using
…settings. You know it works because Lightburn does.
When you Home the machine, what is in the Move window display?
Enter $# in the Console and report what you get.
could you copy and paste the full list of your $$ firmware settings as text, not an image?
