this should be a circle

Hello all,

I am at my wits end with this. I drew a circle in inkscape, opened it with estlcam, checked it with repetier host and everything was fine. I put it on an SD card to print on the machine and it prints in the shape of an “S”. It does the first half of the circle properly (think clockwise from 9 to 3) but when it gets to the halfway point (where it should circle back) it goes backwards ( think counterclockwise from 9 to 3) in one continuous line. I recorded a video of it but apparently all things electronic have deciced not to cooperate with me today. Thanks in advance.

motors and electronics were purchased from vicious one. running marlin

Hah, that’s a new one. Can you paste your gcode up here? I have a feeling it’s not doing arc commands right, for some reason (G02/G03). There is a checkbox in estlcam to make it do lines instead of arcs, which should turn into a bunch of G1 commands. I haven’t had the arc issues, but I know it’s a common fix to funny problems like this.

here you go

It seems the screenshots i took of the gcode didn’t load. FWIW I have the “use arc commands G02/ G03” box checked and the “I/J coordinates are relative” box checked in ESTLCAM

Instead of screenshots, just upload the file.

I am humbled to ask how to do that

Under where you write text for your post is a gray box with the words, “Select file”. Click that button and it will open up a dialog to select the file. Then you can submit your post as usual.

Just testing to make sure it still works.

Apparently, it doesn’t…

@Ryan, Something seems to be broken with the upload.

Upload Errors:

bear_bear.gcode: File not uploaded.
bear_bear_2.gcode: File not uploaded.
beer_bear.txt: File not uploaded.
beer_bear.zip: File not uploaded.
rubber-duck_0.jpg: File not uploaded.

Dang it, sorry fellas. I won’t be able to get to a computer to fix that until this evening.

Pesky job, getting in the way of our good time.

 

could someone explain what the ESTLCAM CNC program settings mean? I understand the X,Y,and Z, but what about the rest of the alphabet (I,J,F,S, and N)?

I, J are the X, Y location of the center of an arc. F is feedrate S is spindle speed (I think) and N is line number (I think). They are all gcode standards. All the info you could ever want on gcodes is here:

http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#G2_.26_G3:_Controlled_Arc_Move

What about this, can you open it in a text editor (like notepad) and just copy paste in the gcode as a post?

BRILLIANT

;Project circle
;Created by Estlcam version 10 build 10.035
;Machining time about 00:00:49 hours

G90
M03 S24000
G00 Z5.0000

;No. 1: Engraving 1
G00 X156.4661 Y13.7897
G00 Z0.5000
G01 Z-3.0000 F1200 S24000
G02 X94.7896 Y25.6636 I-3.4810 J148.0384
G02 X56.6377 Y50.1950 I53.3368 J124.8838
G02 X32.1507 Y81.1413 I82.3407 J90.3152
G02 X18.1775 Y130.0149 I97.5644 J54.3284
G01 X18.1006 Y132.0807
G01 X18.0625 Y134.1983
G01 X18.0655 Y136.3162
G02 X31.2944 Y187.4838 I111.3171 J-1.4860
G02 X58.5900 Y221.7623 I107.9792 J-57.9761
G01 X60.2883 Y223.2315
G01 X62.0148 Y224.6739
G02 X103.8065 Y248.0630 I87.4536 J-107.2314
G01 X106.0089 Y248.8194
G02 X202.7830 Y247.9675 I47.1424 J-141.8069
G02 X244.5186 Y224.4979 I-45.7839 J-130.2605
G02 X273.0496 Y191.0408 I-78.4547 J-95.7969
G02 X280.5504 Y175.5095 I-99.7625 J-57.7570
G02 X280.4914 Y94.5438 I-102.0335 J-40.4085
G02 X257.3687 Y57.8730 I-110.3055 J43.9274
G02 X221.6769 Y30.5170 I-97.1979 J89.8541
G01 X219.6344 Y29.4589
G01 X217.5716 Y28.4329
G02 X161.3475 Y13.9764 I-63.9693 J132.2270
G01 X158.9928 Y13.8665
G01 X156.6929 Y13.7948
G00 Z5.0000
G00 X0.0000 Y0.0000

M05

So, this looks circle “like” :slight_smile: It’s not really a circle. The center for each of the arcs is moving around,It’s 280x250 in size. Is that what you expected?

At any rate, uncheck that box that says, “use arc commands G02/ G03”.

Thank you for your patience and help. I confess it is not really a circle. That seems about right for the size. I was troubleshooting and not very concerned with the exact dimension. How does unchecking that box fix this?

ARGH!

That did’nt fix it. I drew up a new “circle” file and it is doing the same thing.

Good, I’m not crazy (just wrong) about the circle.

The arcs looked OK to me in gcode, but I’m not the Marlin firmware, and I know some people get odd results when using arcs in Marlin.

But, it didn’t work, eh? So back to the drawing board. To reiterate, it’s basically only travelling in the +y direction, instead of going back down in y, it goes up. Is that right?

Are you using endstops?

Can you manually move the machine in all directions?

What about this gcode (don’t bother having it cut)?

G90
G01 X0 Y0 F1200
G01 X0 Y250
G01 X280 Y250
G01 X280 Y0
G01 X0 Y0
That should go in a box the same size, +y, then +x, then -y, then -x, back to the beginning.

To clarify, by manually, I meant with the LCD controller, or with a computer, not by just pushing it with your hand.

Well I think it's a bad MEGA board causing the problem. I say think because I swapped it out with another one I had and was able to move all three axes by hand. But when I loaded up the circle program I bumped into the board about halfway through the program and POOF,it shutdown. Upon a closer inspection I realized I moved one of the heat sinks and it must have shorted something out. I'll get a new MEGA and see if that fixes it. Thank you for all your patience and help with this.