While cutting out a part, I realized my MPCNC is not cutting deep enough on the Z-axis by about 6x. For example, I put the depth of cut as 30mm in ESTLCAM with a 1mm cut on each pass. The result was 30 passes, but it only cut about 5mm deep total.
I’m using a mini-rambo board purchased from here, ESTLCAM, and threaded rod for the Z-axis. I tightened the pineapple coupler, but the issue persists.
Any suggestions for where to start first? I searched the forums and it seems like a lot of people encountered similar issues but there is a variety of root causes.
First, Command a 10mm movement, and confirm with a ruler it is moving 10mm. If that works, I would look at the Z speeds and look for high speed movements that might be causing it to skip.
I’m really glad it was a PEBKAC issue instead of a physical one with the stepper. I’m cutting out the part now using 6x the depth and it’s working flawlessly.
If you don’t want to tweak the configuration.h file and reflash the board, you could also fix this by adding a M92 line to the gcode that ESTLCAM uses at the start of each file.
Assuming you have 1.8 degree motors, you need 200 steps per rotation. Multiply by 16, assuming your stepper drivers are doing 16 micro-steps. Then divide by 1.25 for the pitch of M8 threaded rod gives 2560 steps per mm.
M92 Z2560
That should allow you to use normal units in Esltcam.
