Hello all, I finished assembling my Lead 1515 yesterday and when I got to the point of jogging the x and y positions I ran into an issue. Here are two videos showing the problem . OpenBuilds - Google Drive The Z axis works fine. I am pretty sure I did not make a mistake in the assembly since I followed the video and really took my time with the build. Once that happened I did the following: - I rechecked the motor wires to make sure everything was correct - made sure the flexible couplings are tight and correctly placed on the motor shafts - reapplied tension to the rods - I rewrote the Lead 1515 profile to the black-box - I lowered the jog speed in the OpenBuilds Control to 30%(this helped a bit on the Y axis doing 0.1" movements, but once I switched back to 1" movements it did it again). It also helped a bit on the X axis at first but then it just made the sound from the video in both directions. Update from today. I raised the voltage on the blackbox for the x axis and stopped vibrating but does not move smoothly. I tried the entire voltage range but it still does the same thing. I tried that on the y axis and in small increments it works. But as soon as I move it 10-100mm at a time it does the same thing as the video. I thought I fixed it by setting the voltage, but my jog speed was at 50%. It worked fine at that speed. Then I homed the machine and ran the Hello World job and it did it again so I aborted the job. It seems to not handle the 100% speed of the jog control or the hello world job. One thing I did notice when assembling is that the X and the Y2 rod is extremely hard to rotate. I tried threading it the first time from each side of the threaded plates but it did not make a difference. I can barely rotate the Y2 rod by hand, and the X rod is even harder. I had to use a wrench to rotate it from the tension nut. Not sure if that has something to do with it, but I am hoping this can be solved. I was very excited yo have it up and running. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Update: After going through about 80 pages in the forum I found a few things that I tried out. I took the tension off the rods and loosened the screws from the threaded nut blocks I think it’s called. After doing so and playing around with the motor voltages I managed to get the machine to jog at 100% speed with no problems, even after retightening the blocks and adding tension. Then I tried sending the Hello World file and it seems like the feedrate is way too fast. Even though I checked and it's only 1000mm/s. It did the thing on the Y axis again shown in the video. The X axis might be ok, but I didn’t notice since I panicked and aborted the job. Then I tried sending a test file I had for a different machine which had a feedrate of 1400mm/m and it just stalled and the motors sounded like they were going to explode. I found a post about that ( Stepper Motors stall ) which is exactly what it did here, and the solution was to calibrate the acceleration. I loaded the Lead 1515 profile from OB Control and I also tried the one on the touch control unit (can’t remember the name at the moment). So it’s the recommended settings. I will be only using the machine for acrylic so my feedrate will probably end up between 1000-1400mm/m at 0.8-1.3mm depth per pass. Should I try setting the acceleration / max rate manually in this case?
Did you order your machine from openbuildspartstore.com, a reseller or elsewhere? Just to confirm as our motors match our profiles, as does our leadnut and leadscrew diameters.
1) Take the motors off the machine 2) Try jogging a longish distance - if its stutters/vibrates, see docs:blackbox:faq-identify-motor-coils [OpenBuilds Documentation] 3) If the motors on their own runs fine, it will be some mechanical binding - incorrectly installed leadnuts, thrust bearings, that sort of thing - the leadscrew had to be relatively easy to turn by hand. A little dry/ptfe lubricant (do not use oil, it degrades plastic components) - might help too for the initial break in - but it shouldn't be overly tight to begin with - that's more of an indication of something incorrectly assembled.
Thank you for the help! Today I took the motors off, Jogged them and sent the Hello World job. Everything went the way it should. So the motors ran fine. I went over everything and everything is correctly installed. Then I loosened the tension on the motors and loosened the threaded nut blocks on each axis and it was jogging fine again. So I concluded it was a tension problem or overtightened nut blocks. So in the end, I played around with the lead screw tension, tightness of the nut blocks and current to the motors. I got it to the point where it worked fine. I did add dry ptfe lube to the leadscrews though. Once I added the router I had to readjust the X Axis. I managed to do 2 small test cuts on a scrap piece of 5mm cast acrylic. One at 1200mm/m at 1mm depth per pass, and another one at 1300mm/m at 1.2mm depth per pass. Both went well, but I am sticking to the 1200 settings since it gave me a better finish overall. Then once I finished the second job. The machine stood still turned on for about 15 minutes. Then I went to jog the Y axis and to my surprise it did it again. Then I realized it was the Y2 motor causing issues/stalling making the Y1 move out of place. I re-set the current to the Y2 motor then it worked perfect again. This did happen before the first job, but on the X axis. I have to lower/raise the current by a very small bit and it starts working again. Which is weird. But it seems like I am getting closer to having it perfect. Here are a few videos: OB_Update - Google Drive
Sounds as though your nut blocks may be a bit stiff (they often are when new) - I usually recommend using a battery drill to grip the leadscrew and run the leadscrew back and forth through the nut blocks (with PTFE dry lubricant) several times - without the motors connected to them obviously. Alex.
Stock current setting (about halfway) is good for most machines. If that stalls, something is still a little tight yes. Or if you can spin leadscrew easily by hand, carriages move without binding: Then it could also be that the motor stalls from having current set too high (causing driver to overheat or enter overcurrent protection mode) ? (Red exclamation mark LED as described in the current adjustment section of docs.openbuilds.com/blackbox will be on if that is the case) Or an intermittendly loose wire (Motor Troubleshooting section under the FAQ section of docs.openbuilds.com/blackbox)
I had a belt-driven machine before this one, so if that is a symptom of a new machine then that might actually be the case here. Thank you for the info
Honestly, today I could spin the Y2 and X axis by hand from the flexible coupling easier than yesterday. They are a bit harder to rotate from the tension nut but at least they spin by hand now. I did run into the red exclamation mark a few times while adjusting, but I turned the current down after that happened and I did not go higher than 3/4. I noticed the exclamation mark shuts off the motor completely when it happens. I think the nut blocks just need to break-in a bit then I can lower the voltage to half as you said. Slowly but surely it is getting smoother. Thank you very much for the help. I definitely learned a lot about the machine during troubleshooting and I am very happy I made my first cut today using it.
