Hi, Any idea why my Workbee is so slow? I,very adjusted the GRBL setting to increase the X and Y max speed, but anything over 4000 makes the motors stall. I do a fair amount of Trochoidal milling (3mm aluminium) which works great, but the process can best be described as sluggish. Sure, it gets there, but from videos I've seen online, I should be capable of about twice the feed rate I'm getting. Any suggestions? Duncan
Post all your grbl settings (Grbl Settings tab, click Backup, open the file, paste contents here) so we can take a look for you
Hi again. Here's my GRBL file $0=10 ; Step pulse time, microseconds $1=255 ; Step idle delay, milliseconds $2=0 ; Step pulse invert, mask $3=5 ; Step direction invert, mask $4=1 ; Invert step enable pin, boolean $5=0 ; Invert limit pins, boolean $6=0 ; Invert probe pin, boolean $10=1 ; Status report options, mask $11=0.020 ; Junction deviation, millimeters $12=0.002 ; Arc tolerance, millimeters $13=0 ; Report in inches, boolean $20=0 ; Soft limits enable, boolean $21=1 ; Hard limits enable, boolean $22=1 ; Homing cycle enable, boolean $23=3 ; Homing direction invert, mask $24=100.000 ; Homing locate feed rate, mm/min $25=3000.000 ; Homing search seek rate, mm/min $26=250 ; Homing switch debounce delay, milliseconds $27=5.000 ; Homing switch pull-off distance, millimeters $30=24000 ; Maximum spindle speed, RPM $31=8400 ; Minimum spindle speed, RPM $32=0 ; Laser-mode enable, boolean $100=200.000 ; X-axis steps per millimeter $101=200.000 ; Y-axis steps per millimeter $102=200.000 ; Z-axis steps per millimeter $110=4000.000 ; X-axis maximum rate, mm/min $111=4000.000 ; Y-axis maximum rate, mm/min $112=1500.000 ; Z-axis maximum rate, mm/min $120=150.000 ; X-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2 $121=150.000 ; Y-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2 $122=150.000 ; Z-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2 $130=1300.000 ; X-axis maximum travel, millimeters $131=1220.000 ; Y-axis maximum travel, millimeters $132=80.000 ; Z-axis maximum travel, millimeters
Update: I set Estlcam feed rate to 2480 mm/min. But this was terribly lethargic. So I adjusted the CONTROL slider to 150%. Absolutely no difference. And then, about an hour into the job, all hell broke loose. The Workbee started making up for lost time, as if there were no tomorrow. So fast that the chips were melting in the channel. I had to stop the job, remove the completed parts from Estlcam, and start again. Slow and sure, and then madness after a minute or two. Not wanting to abort the job again, I paused it, checked the bit for molted aluminium, and started it again. Once more, calm and steady. And without warning, chaos took over again. Another pause and restart. Slow and steady, but after a minute or two, crazy fast. I finsally had to stop the "pause reset" trick when Pause no longer worked. Clicking it did not result in a pause. I had to shut down everything (laptop, Estlcam, CONTROL, BlackBox). I adjusted Estlecam feed to 2048mm/min. On restart, everything proceeded in a calm and steady manner. Very slow, but clean and orderly. I no longer want those crazy speeds when I use Trochoidal. Molten aluminium, and buggered up bits is not my idea of fun. Whew! Duncan
Sounded more like acceleration than top speed when I skimmed the other day, and these indeed look pretty low to me: I'd bump them up to 500, then 1000, then 1500, see if you can make it stall out then back off 20%. Trochoidal milling is 100% acceleration- it's going in circles! Top speed only matters for covering distance on a large machine.
I notice RPM settings in the Grbl Settings dump that looks like you have a VFD? VFDs create a lot of nasty EMI. Could be causing serial data corruption causing some of this weirdness. Dryer days more issues? See docs:blackbox:faq-emi [OpenBuilds Documentation]
Ok cool, but routers can too. Check the serial log for clues if serial corruption as demonstrated in the Docs if any comms feel weird