mistermikev

further, last night I ran a new prog to create a shelf for my pc to sit on with a bunch of slots throughout for airflow... ran it like a champ.  no staggered edges... everything is perfect.  again, that is all square.  I used the sm post process that I used for the neck pocket.  No issues.

well, ran them 5 times each and go to z after 5 times each... looks pretty spot on to me.  I have a very fine crosshair indicating my zero and I set zero by eye before running (I removed my workpiece finally)... if it is off by any amount it is def not discernable by eye!

right on.  I like your enthusiasm.  I have a saying that this reminds me of: "I have all my code written... now I just need to get it to work"!!  here's to an uneventful first build!!

17 hours ago, curtisa said:

Another couple of tests to try.

Run the 'Diagonal test 0_5 inch' file 4 or 5 times and verify the cutter always ends at X0, Y0. Repeat the same process with the 'Diagonal test 0_04 inch' file and check again.

Diagonal test 0_04 inch.rtf 504 B · 0 downloads Diagonal test 0_5 inch.rtf 502 B · 0 downloads

roger that.  will do.  was thinking of creating a test... where I try different angles... because I suspect it's the very fine movements that are the problem.  45 deg doesn't seem to pose an issue... my guess is I'd have to try some 5, 2.5 and 1 deg angles and see what shakes.  anywho, I will go run these asap.  thanks again for the continued help!!

3 minutes ago, MiKro said:

Yep mine does the same most times as it has to do with the steps being off so slightly it is the best I can come up with. LOL

well I can def live with that kind of accuracy!!  Honestly, I'd like to get on to running some other things I have planned... but at this point I just don't trust this machine.  

23 minutes ago, curtisa said:

It is physically returning to the same spot though, not just what Mach3 is reporting?

yessir... 

7 minutes ago, MiKro said:

Mike, you do realize that 0.0001 is one tenth of a thousand. It is nothing to concern about. or one tenth of 0.001" most machines have 0.005" or more backlash in them.

Most things done in wood will change more than 0.020" from day to day due to humidity.

MK

yes, I do realize that .0001 is one tenth of .001 (hehe, couldn't help myself!)  wasn't expressing concern about this... that's what it always says when it returns to zero.  

.0001 on x and y each time.  just faster!!

3 minutes ago, curtisa said:

What about if you take that same code and change the line that reads:

To:

And run again?

roger that.  will do right nao.

grbl... i imagine that has all sorts of niceties for doing holes and such for pcb layout?  I've oft wondered why couldn't one just use mach3/aspire and load in a pcb shape... but I guess the answer is going to be that aspire is going to try to trace the outline of it... as opposed to using the fill.  anywho, congrats.

50 minutes ago, curtisa said:

One more code to try. This just does a handful of moves around a square pattern 2" x 2". At the end of each group of moves it should return to X0, Y0 and pause for 5 seconds for you to check if any drift is occuring. I've annotated the lines of code for you to check as they run.

Square and 45deg.rtf 897 B · 0 downloads

ok, so rebuilt my machine... tried it - sm result so... can rule out any issues with the pc!

ran you code... every time it went to xo/yo it was at .0001 which is typically what I get when I go to zero.  some interesting code there in the sense that it's commented well and I've learned some interesting things from it... like how to pause!  saving that for later.  

well thank you for that.

1 hour ago, MiKro said:

Well,I think that you should stop worrying about the guitar. You are trying to run before you crawl. It is time for basics. Establish an X0 Y0 that you will use from now on that is your machine coordinates. From there you always have a reference point. You need to make circles, squares and pockets first. these will help you understand your machine and machining. Without this knowledge you are wasting your time in my opinion. First get that down as this will also help troubleshoot machine problems. Too much is being said about possible Gcode problems as well as this, that, and chicken fat. Get back to basics. 

I also do not understand the fascination with Gecko? Yes it is used by many but it is not the endall of problem solution. .

Just my 0.02cents,

Peace,

Mk

well, I have done lots of preliminary cuts that were successful.  did a dust boot -a few times actually, did a spoil board 2x, did some circles in the form of coasters... did some engraving.  planed my materials using it, did my mounting holes - all went swell.  honestly each part of this guitar is broken down into simple steps... and even the body shape went fine.  

the reason gecko is of focus is that it is very much recommended for this machine.  lots of folks have had success with it.  further the implementation is very simple.  it has the drivers right on the control board which simplifies things a bit.  as I understand I can always add a motion controller to it later and go out via usb or ethernet.  It is quite popular and as such has a lot of support.  That is also the reason I chose mach3 - there is lots of support/threads regarding it.  In my mind these are all good places to start.

I realize there are lots of other solutions out there ucnc, etc.  My thoughts are that if I could start with something simple... I can continue to learn and perhaps learn why one might go the ucnc rout other than just to get usb or ethernet.  

I know your advice was to not use center-line - but I can't help it - that's what makes the most sense to me.  Everything I've done apart from the neck pocket has worked great using that.  It would seem that using ctr line is not an option when tiling but other than that... I don't see a down side to it.  that is indeed what I'm picking for my x0/yo.  then we come to machine coordinates... perhaps I need to learn something there but machine coordinates seem irrelevant in that they don't really matter if you just disregard them once you have workpiece coordinates (and assuming you don't have limit switches setup).  

Either way... I'm gonna keep throwing things at this... build a new pc today, rewire the steppers/vfd next week, perhaps build a new controller - until it makes sense and runs the way I expect.  Perhaps along the way I'll stumble into what is causing issue here but so far it sure doesn't seem like it's anything I'm doing.  

Any chance you could run my g-code and see if you have the sm issue?  If you don't: doesn't tell me much... but if you do - then it's def something in the g-code.  I don't want to lean on you too much, so totally fine if you don't want to.  

Either way - I very much appreciate the help from both of you - I've actually learned a lot just troubleshooting this so... I think I would probably have learned less if things just went w/o issue.  Please forgive if I don't always take your advice verbatim - it's not that I doubt you... it's just that I have to learn and that means sometimes not blindly following but picking the wrong path and making mistakes, and finding out why something isn't a good idea.

well I've found that learning is seldom pleasant in the short run so... if this is the worst thing that happens to me this year - I'm good!

again, thanks for all your help.  I do very much appreciate it.

24 minutes ago, curtisa said:

Well that could be something to explore, as your pickup cavity Gcode doesn't do any moves where X and Y are driven at the same time. The way the pickup cavity is clearing the material is in a zig-zag pattern, whereas the neck cavity has those little 45 degree traverse moves in between each spiral move. Seems odd that you were able to do a more complex shape like the body outline without issues though; that should be full of simultaneous X&Y moves.

 

Gecko G540 is parallel port only. Isn't your machine USB?

that's a very good point about the body and was thinking that earlier myself... totally blows my theory.  

yes, the gecko is parallel, I'd be adding on a pci slot parallel card to run that.  Would feel a bit like a step backwards.

I guess another thing could be the laptop it's running on.  I was warned that laptops are not great for cnc but I've setup the power options to never sleep and kept the power supply way away from the setup... that said, I have a tower as I just built a new pc that would be terribly overbuilt for this purpose but i don't have another use for it... just need to get a monitor.  Would be worth a shot anyway.

seems like what it is is... every time it tells it to travel at an angle but in the y direction... it is likely just going perfectly straight... but it things it's traveling at that angle... so it just ends up off by that angle compounded by however many passes it makes.  I think (and keeping in mind I have no idea) that it has something to do with this machine not following commands where it is moving along x and y at the sm time.  this is backed up by how it reacts to the keyboard jog.  if you hold two arrows... it only moves in one direction.  it can't receive two direction at once.  

when i bought this machine - I had read a lot about them... and everyone says the mechanical is solid, steppers are decent, spindle is great... but controllers are just not good.  I've read thread after thread of folks trying things and eventually buying a gecko g540 and then you never hear from them again.  Further - usually those sm threads have 5or 6 posts of folks telling the person to get a g540 and not waste time trying to troubleshoot the chinese junk!!

I hate to throw money at something w/o really knowing what's going wrong... but am getting a bit discouraged by the sm result over and over.  

I've bought the cables to redo them... if I buy a new controller or not I'll redo those cables so... should have them setup in the next week or so. 

I've found a g540 build but w/o spindle control for $450... and I could reuse this vfd or get a new one for $150... patch that into it with just a few components and that should do it... so thinking pretty hard on that!

thinking about that earlier run... with the pickup AND the neck pocket... even more baffled as it runs the pickup right afa going west of the centerline... and even stopped it after the pickup and we are still on center... but as soon as it starts running the neck pocket - if you stop it... ctr is no longer ctr.

sorry, first time i ran the wrong file (hadn't renamed it to .txt so mach3 didn't see it).  ran the file to do the profile and maybe saw a little bit of a 45 at the two corners where it's rounded but def square pattern at the uppermost corners.  

ran it... can't really see any 45deg movement.  just looks like it's moving in the square spiral pattern.

roger that will try now.

oh, and in mach3 - the image it shows is just fine.  looks like my neck pocket... even shows it entered on the x centerline.

oh, and jogging the x... there is no real difference to how it moves east or west of the x.

so, moving the x axis manually... when it's off - it moves the sm the whole way through the area.  when I add power - it's much harder to move the x axis.  

ran the program - sm result.  afterwards my x had drifted.

so I'll answer some of these and then go give a few things a shot...

it moves to the position just west of the x with precision every time... like it was programmed to go there.  no stall, no variation.

I read some about settings this morning and changed a bunch of stuff... including upping the pulse to 5... and it made the machine fast as all get out... but ran the original neck program and still does the sm thing.  

will go check for stiffness and run the prog - thanks again for sticking it out here with me!  I fell like if I could at least zero in on the problem being w the controller... I'd feel pretty good about it... but it being an unknown... just frustrating!!

sorry for delay... had some thanksgiving chores to do for the wife and (according to her) they were immediate need (happy wife happy life and all).

so, finally got around to running it and catching it at the part where it does the neck... sm issues.  keeps returning to just west of the centerline and keeps progressing further east.