Well got the 3d printing worked out pretty good, so decided to try out the dw660. Works great, this this cuts great for its weight and isn’t as loud as it would be, but still pretty loud.
Anyways, I guess I noticed this when I was printing as well, but it was never an issue during the prints. I did several 3-4 hour prints with no issue, except at the end of the print when it went to raise the nozzle i would hear a “bbbbzzzzz” and the axis would not raise. Worked fine during the prints though. Well about 99% of the time with the router attached it works great, but when running the router, eventually it will try to go up, think it did, then cut down deep into the work piece.
Axis turns really nice and smooth by hand, only takes one finger to spin it all the way up and all the way down. I can’t seem to recreate the issue with manual jogging, or with the machine doing a dry run. It only does it when its cutting, and of course usually at about 75% completion of the test, about 15 minutes. Still haven’t gotten through an entire test yet.
So what I’m getting at here, is could this be something that can be changed with the stepper motor settings? Step acceleration? I don’t really know what I’m talking about but I have been trying to do some more learning.
Also, with text it is backwards… so is that as easy as flipping one of the wire sets that hook to the ramps, either x or y?
So a little more info. I just took the whole z axis out, cleaned, loosened back lash nut, lubed up rod, made sure everything was lined up and square. Still having same issue, possibly worse now? My lead screw turns very easily by hand.
It’s skipping going up and down. If I put a little finger tension on rod while its going up and down, it skips worse. Couplers not slipping. About 95% of the time it doesn’t do it. Now I’m starting to wonder if the stepper is bad? Is that even a possibility.
Easy one first, Flip your x axis plug to fix the mirroring.
For the Zaxis, check the driver voltage. I ship it at about 0.43V. If it is not at that voltage turn it to that. If it is already there turn it up 0.1v at a time and give it a test. you can turn it up pretty high but eventually the stepper will get hot, and if you go above 0.72V you should put a fan on your ramps board to keep the drivers cool. You can actually turn them all up to get more power if you have active cooling. Little hidden bonus…
I have a test script you can cut and paste into repetier if you right click on the number buttons in manual control. #2 is a z axis only test. I run these on every board on one of my machines before I ship them.
To use the scripts just right click on the numbers in the repetier manual control screen and paste the following in spot 1 and 2. Apply, then clock on the number to run it.
All axis – Xand Y back and forth 100mm and the z axis up and down 9mm max.
G91
G0 Y100 F11400
G1 Y-100 F11400
G1 X100 F15000
G1 X-100 F15000
G1 Z9 F20000
G1 Z-9 F522
G1 Z1 F2000
G1 Z-1 F2000
G1 Z1 F2000
G1 Z-1 F2000
G90
If your using the standard DW660 mounting bracket I found that if the DW660 is rotated a certain way it hits the bolts. It drove me nuts for a week until I figured it out. Rotate the 660 a little. I attached a couple pictures
I am now using the universal mounting system so I can swap out between a hot end for 3D printing and my Dw660. I noticed that the universal mount has a little more clearance.
Hmm. I had some serious problems with the z axis losing steps early on. This might have been the reason. I now use the universal mount, and since I installed it, I’ve pretty much only been using the laser. I’ll have to give the router another try soon.
I will try out the torture test when I get home tonight. Gotta love trying to make the problem worse to find out how to make it better. Is that laser setup pretty easy to get working? Sounds like fun.
I ran the z-torture about 15 times, just looking and watching every part. I ended up adjusting the driver voltage up to .72v, and it seems to be the best results so far. No missed steps on the last job. It still clunks a little when switching directions, but if its losing steps, its catching up. Before it would sometimes miss a big direction jump, of say 5 mm and be completely off.
The stepper barely got warm after doing repeated torture tests. As far as the driver, it did get a bit warmer it seemed- but I wasn’t ever really paying attention to it before. My backlash spring is pretty loose now, the lower nut is hanging out of the nut trap but it didn’t seem to cause any issues. I really just made the lead screw a little bit easier to turn.
Any input on the stepper clunking? It reminds me of the sound of gears not meshing together for a split second. My x and y’s don’t make this noise, but they also spin much slower.
That doesn’t sound right. Mine are pretty silent unless something is wrong. I know its a pain but maybe switch the z steppers with one of the others. Narrow it down to the steppers or something else.
So I was testing boards today and got one that just wouldn’t cooperate on the zaxis. I turned the pot up, down, switched drivers, changed the feed rate. Nothing worked.
The solution was change the zaxis acceleration to 45 instead of 55. That is a bummer, I need to do more testing on this before I release a new firmware, but you might want to try it.
I would kind of prefer to have the acceleration high and limit the top speed for faster finishing passes on 3d milling. That’s where the testing comes in. I could also start shipping the z axis at 16th stepping if that fixes the issue. I have to get some parts prepped and orders filled before I can spend time testing, just wanted to keep you in the loop.
Oh now you tell me, I just switched steppers around! Just kidding it only took about 5 minutes, good trouble shooting test. Still the same issue. Could you give me a quick run down of how to change the acceleration? I haven’t done any previous work with programming or arduino, other than just hooking them up and they work. Thanks for finding a solution!
Maybe bump the max speed down to 8.5 as well. That really seems to clear it up. I’ll check on the 16th steps tonight or tomorrow. I really want more speed on this axis.
Having some similar trouble- random missed Z moves on cuts that prevent me from doing anything useful with the machine.
With the z anti backlash nut backed all the way off, accel turned down to 35 and max speed turned down to 7 I got it to work reliably with the Z torture test. Might be able to handle more than 7, I was just getting frustrated and went very conservative.
With the anti backlash nut in place (not very tight, hanging halfway out of the nut trap) it still binds and buzzes like crazy. Have adjusted vrefs ranging from .4-.9 without much affect.
I think maybe the rigid coupler is part of the problem. The first one I printed was way off center, and the one I just redid in an attempt to fix this might still be a little off. I can feel sometimes it is slightly harder to turn the z screw for a little bit.
There are parametric couplers out there if your printer is not handling my file well. You don’t even need to anti-backlash, it is just for those who want extra protection against zaxis tolerances. Try with out it, especially if it is already backed all the way off, just get it out of the way. Is your z nut holder in line with the coupler? Make sure it isn’t skewed. Lots of little things to check for. If your joiners didn’t print the 45 degree part well it will throw off the alignment. Could be your problem if the couplers aren’t printing well either.
Make sure your z axis is not twisted as well. Take the whole fully assembled z axis and lay it on a really flat surface like a stone counter or a piece of glass. Make sure both rods are touching nice and flat.
In order to overcome Ryan’s Z torture test I’ve have to set Vref of Z driver to 0.75V (before was 0.45) and slow max acceleration of Z to 20. Heatsink is almost cold with a 8 cm fan.
I have the same problem. When I changed the steps calculation on the z axis to 1/16 instead of 1/32 everything seems to work without stalling. I am using the drv8266 with the three jumpers on board.
Do I have this same problem? Or Am I fighting something else?
My Z axis just stops completely, 100% not moving, or making a sound, or resisting me twisting the knob. I was getting it when I was jumping around with my LCD screen, but I just did my first cut of some foam, and it did a few minutes, maybe, and it just stopped moving the Z axis.
I used estlcam to make the gcode. I set the G00 to G01 in the settings as suggested. I have a 3mm/s plunge rate. The LCD panel says my Vzmax is 8.
The strangest thing is that I also don’t know what I did to fix this before. I power cycled, waited, etc. This time, the Z didn’t come back. I swapped the cables so the Z motor was being driven by the X driver, and it moved just fine. The driver is cold to the touch. Maybe it finally pooped on me.
Here’s a quick sample of the gcode, I only see Z with an F180, which is 3mm/s, I think.:
;Project vectorlogo1 no drips
;Created by Estlcam version 8 build 8.304
;Machining time about 12:44:01 AM hours
G90
M03 S24000
; manually added to set the feed rate first.
G01 F180
