Question 3d Porsche - failed

Hi,

i'm still a newbie, but i'm making progression, if it wasn't for this hatefully fact that all of a sudden, the zero point of my 'masterpiece' is changed by the stepcraft or the UCCNC software.

Here's a Porsche woodcarving that i was making for a couple of hours and then suddenly, at 1/4 of the end, the zero point is changed by some 20 mm, making my mill is entering the area it wasn't supposed to...

i noticed that the speed by which the x-axis is travelling changes too during this moments, resulting in breaking the mills.

It has nothing to do with grouped or combined toolpaths, since only 1 toolpath is made in Aspire and exported as a Mach 3 file.

I was milling for hours (litteraly) and just in a fraction of time, my promising artwork is ruined... again.

Could it be my (old) laptop (Windows Vista) with only 2 Gb ram? Bad USB connection (yesterday, it plowed for 3 hours without a problem, today after 4 minutes... all went wrong)

i have enclosed the mach2/3 txt file, i believe the error happened around line 162449 or something... i noticed a line saying 'N123160G00Z6.000', but i have no clue if this is normal, or not...





you can see where the endmill is 'breaking' through it's toolpath...


on the right side the correct zero point, and the 'new zero point' after te error, a difference of 20 mm. Needless to say what this does with your project...

some ideas:
- did you disconnect your PC from internet?
- screensaver off?
- any routine which tries to update SW off?
- security scanner off? (weekly filescan...)
- any programm running in parallel in the background?

Did you ground your machine (static electricity)?

Did you switch on any electrical device during milling like vacuum cleaner?

Lost steps for sure - due to mechanical issues.

after a week thinking about it, what could go wrong, i just gave it another go... all went well... untill some 50.000 lines further... again, the same sh*t....

Although everyone - with a lot more experience told me it was a loss of steps - i refused to believe it, because the built went rather difficultly and i was sure now the machine was now as good as it gets with a homebuilt stepcraft...
Guess not... i just discovered that 2 bolts from my Y-axis have come loose, resulting in some slack on the Y-axis, problably causing the loss of steps...

Very frustrating... i'll have to rework my Stepcraft once more... starting to hate it...

Sorry to hear that. It's a real shame too, because what it did correctly looks really great. Good luck getting your piece finished.

Agree with Rory. I was having the same problem. Tuned the Z axis as per the video and it's worked perfectly ever since.

i followed the 2 videos from Rory step by step for the X and Y axis, but now it seems i have problems with my Z-axis...

thanks to the videos and the step by step guidance in those videos i think i eliminated some problems on those axis...
Can anyone post the missing Z-axis tune up video from Stoney CNC...

Hope that will work 'cause i'm realy losing my nerves with the Stepcraft.

It shouldn't be that hard to get the damn thing aligned and working?
And from what i'm reading here on the forum, it's clearly not just me...

after reassembling the machine bit by bit, according to Rory's video, now i have soms issues with the Z-axis. Would there be a specific video on how to tune that one as well?

I tried to play a bit with the velocity in UCCNC, after switching my heavy Kress 800 spindle for a little Dremel 300 which was laying around in my workshop. I made an adapter from some scrap wood and used woodglue to hold the dremel into it's new adapter, before i spent any more money into the stepcraft machine.

Everything that - in my opinion - could make a difference in the operation of my step-losing Steppie, i diminished by 50%. The velocity was set to 3000, now it's 1500, etc...

And what do you know... i managed to finish a complete workpiece, albeit a very small engraving toolpath with a 2mm endmill... but hey, it's a start