Hi All, I have a problem: I am trying to surface a spoil board I purchased from SainSmart, which is the same size as the aluminum bed of the machine (300mm x 180mm). So if I run a surfacing program the machine will always stop with an error:9 (Limit Switch)and does not finish the program. Q: How can I surface the spoil board 300mm x 180mm with an 1" surfacing bit w/o running into the limit switches? Thanks for reply and help Juegen Mader
By entering the correct actual travel measurements. Endmill is automatically subtracted. Job is constained to the width and lengths you entered. If it then fails, you either 1) dont have machine calibrated 2) measured actual working envelope incorrectly (measure, dont assume. Home, Zero, jog out as far as you can and note down the DROs) 3) incorrect endmill entered
Hi Peter, As I am completely new to CNC routing, could you please explain a) calibrating the machine b) note down the DRO's? What is a DRO? Thanks for help Juergen Mader
A DRO is a Digital Read Out. It's where you see the number change when you move an axis. For Calibration, just google 'calibrating a cnc' and if you use the Open Control, look for the calibration wizard in the 'Wizard' tab.
Hi All, I did the following: In Candle I zeroed the machine to the lower left corner: this machine zero is physically 10mm from the left side in the X direction and 16mm from the lower side in the Y direction of the spoil board. The readout in Candle was X= -259.000 and Y= -155.000. I then jogged the machine to Xmax = -0.000 and Ymax = 0.000; When I jogged the machine to the maximum travel I measured the following distance: Xmax = 277mm and Ymax = 171mm; these numbers gave me a Xmax travel of 171 - 16 = 155mm and Ymax travel of 269 - 10 = 259mm. I believe the machine is calibrated correctly, since I measured the distances with a precision steel ruler. So I still can't figure out how I could completely surface my spoil board with a dimension of 300mm x 180mm, even with a 22mm cutter. Thanks for help and reply Juergen
So you can only do 256*155 You cannot surface a complete spoilboard. You surface the workable area only. Most people add a sacrificial spoilboard of the actual work area on top, or if you cant afford the Z height, you can afterwards clean up the remainer with a plane if you need to. Or just leave the remainder high, gives you a nice edge to align stock to
Hi All, After all the above, I made a program in Easel to surface the spoil board by "clearing a pocket (size:250mm x 150mm) so that I would not reach the limit switches. I generated and exported the G-code and imported it into Candle. Homed the machine, loaded and send the G-code to the machine (SainSmart 3018 Prover) and it started up (I did not actually cut). The machine made several passes and stopped with a yellow "HOLD" in the Status display; the machine coordinates were: X = -30.207, Y = -38.211 and Z= -8.201. I looked at the console and found the following: S8900 < ok; [MSG:Reset to continue]. So I pressed reset and immediately received an Alarm: [CTRL+X] < ALARM:2 Grbl 1.1f ['$' for help] [MSG:'$H'|'$X' to unlock] S8900 < error:9 I tried this twice, same result. It's getting a bit frustrating and I would really like to understand whats going on. So any suggestions, help is greatly appreciated. Thanks Juergen
Have a read through the Grbl wiki, github.com/gnea/grbl/wiki Alarms are discussed on the Interfacing page. Alarm 2 means your gcode job is larger than the safe envelope specified in Grbl settings > max travel. Or your homing and zeroing is incorrect. Ps: Candle isnt very beginner friendly. Unfortunately not an OpenBuilds machine but some of our docs may cross relate as long as it runs Grbl, so see the software section on docs.openbuilds.com too
