Which axis is which

LowRider CNC Troubleshooting
1

I’m getting my machine running. I got a mini rambo but the dual axis homing looked to useful so a bought a MKS V1.4 and used that.

Using the UI if I say move X the wheels crawl - that’s good.

If I say move Y the center carriage goes up.

If I say move Z the center carriage moves forward and back.

Is that right or was I supposed to change something in firmware?

If it’s right do I rotate my parts into the XZ plane and use Y for the cutting depth?

2

Interesting. This machine is flexible, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try this. It makes some sense, since you’re using the mpcnc firmware.

At a minimum, the directions need to follow the “right hand rule” and not the “left hand rule”. So if Y+ goes up, you have two options:

  1. X+ goes to the right and Z+ goes towards you.
  2. X+ goes to the left and Z+ goes away from you.

As someone who is used to Z going uo, this seems counterintuitive to me. I would make mistakes constantly.

Which cam are you using? Have you tried to make some gcode to cut a triangle or something?

That said, to go back to having Z go up, you need to change the firmware to not have dual Y motors and to have dual Z motors.

3

Thanks for the reply. I did a little poking around and it’s easy to define which axis have dual motors. (I’ve never used Marlin before so this is good nerd fun).

I looked in: Configuration_adv.h and there is a Z_DUAL_STEPPER_DRIVERS. I commented out Y_DUAL_STEPPER_DRIVERS and commented in the Z. Now it does what I expect. Thank goodness. I’m not sure I could have handled XZ as the base plane.