Frage Product not meeting the desired quality :(( ST420

Hi.

I have bought the Stepcraft 420 last week.
My machine id-modul 52397.

I have had huge problems with the mount and making this product work.
The main problem I had was that in Y i could not reference the system and also could not make the machine travel to Y 0 position.

I had to completly dismantle te whole machine twice , read the forums, saw all youtube clips on how to fine tune the axies and adjust the Y lead-screws.
Now I can reference my system but again when traveling to Y0 there is only a grrr grrr grrr sound and the machine can’t move for the last 40, 50 mm . Very unpleasant to know you can travel 420mm but actually get by 120mm less somehow because of this.

The only thing that worked is to untighten the front 4 screws from the main plate (the plate holding the emergency stop button). In this way sometimes I can work with the machine over the entire length of the Y. But sometimes close to Y0 by 20mm I can still met the grr grrr missig stpes sound.
This product starts to annoy me and drive me desperate. I have made other modification to the cable carriage as this one was catching while being pulled driven by Y axis in the box edges... and had to put new duct tape on this as well.

After all this problems I decided to make a cut of a rectangle that I draw to be 60x90mm in Autocad and save as dxf.
As I observe the sizes was imported good in the winNC-PC software.

The biggest problem now is that when I cut something I don’t have the dimensions I have drawn or the dimensions in the WinNC-PC. I get instead of 60mm around 95mm and this is frustrating considering I should not change anything else.

Can you please tell me what to check and modify in order to make the dimensions corectly ?

Thank you.

About the y-Travel:

Loose all the screws on the front plate and the rear plate and let the portal then go all the way back and forth. after that, you can tighten the screws again.

About the dimensions:

Update you WinPC-NC version. The new SC 420 V2 has a 3 mm thread pitch instead of 2 mm. This is a known problem when the new V2 Stepcraft are used with an outdated software package. Mine came also with an old software and I had the same problem.



Martin

hi.
same problem.
and some others too.
i was lucky that someone told me about the 3mm thread pitch.
i wrote to the stepcrat about the problems 3 times and never got an answer.
after they sell you,they do not care anymore

PERANDIN schrieb: after they sell you,they do not care anymore

Easy to say, but hard to proove from your side!
If they receive x emails a day but can only handle y (where y < x) it pretty much looks the same as if they don't care from customers point of view.

first problem:
never got feedback.
if you want i can send you all the mails i sent to the stepcraft and NEVER got an answer.
anyway,perhaps i'll ask you later but i have already bought another machine
thanks anyway

To say the product does not meet the desired quality is not a fair statement without evidence as such. We have may guys who have got machines. Some have build issues, some don't. Some are more confident, some are not. Some guys need a lot of help, some guys don't.

Just because the Y axis is stalling does not mean the machine is not the desired quality. The quality of the finally assembled machine is heavily related to the manner with which its built. Now of course- sometimes there are quality issues with parts etc. But final operation of the STEPCRAFT is 95% related to how its put together.

you have to feel and look for the sources of friction?

power down the machine... move the belt by hand? What do you feel? You feel what the motor feels?

- drive rollers friction?
- Drive roller adjustment?
- ballscrew alignment?
- Pulleys friction?
- Portal squareness?
- grease application?
- Plate assembly?
- Do the holes in the plates need to be enlarged just a little?
- Belt tension?

There are many many many factors that contribute to a Y axis that is stalling. STEPCRAFT give you the opportunity to really understand how it works and how the machine is put together. The tuning and checking draws attention to detail as to how to assembly a well tuned CNC machine. A well put together STEPCRAFT machine can achieve 150% of max rapid speed on the UCCNC controller.


It takes effort, care and attention to detail to build an operational CNC machine. Despite the excellent build instructions, it can still be tricky, and indeed frustrating.

The support aspect is very important. If you do not get help this is not good. this highlights how important it is to consider where you buy your CNC system from. Will you get help? this is a very important question to ask yourself.

No matter how good the product is - from time to time - help will be needed.

Ok after tons of modifications :
1) remaking it almost 2 times.. while correcting :
a) enlargen the bearing holes in the front panel... wonder why stepcraft does not make them bigger and paint them after.. from the beginning..
b) Make sure to have put all the cables carryed by Y beam in a ptfe coverager or Kaptron cover over the existing tube that catches a lot.
Not to mention that this 12mm tube provided by Stepcraft System was shorter and as well the X/Z cables for endswitches was a lot shorter...


I really deal with the statement that this is a poor product, just because this 2 issues should have not been there in the first place.

The support came by mail in the same day in my case and point a) was mentioned .

Also related to the bad traveling distance.. oooups it was my problem that I did not choose stepcraft 2 s420.... but honestly you can never see on the site that this is stepcraft 2 version or this is not very well explained so that probably 80% of persons that install this shitty WinPC-NC will find this problem.

Not sure why such a bad software WINpc-NC is used in this package ?? For me the winPC-NC cannot open most of the simple dxf files...

This company should try harder to deliver the ESTELCAM software package toghether with this machine at least as an improvment and correct the front orange frame..

hi.
i bought the machine from the stepcraft germany.
no support.
i garanty you that they will never sell another machine in Italy.
i'm writting in all the cnc forums about my experience with them

Honestly coming to think about it better.. maybe the product is not that bad.

It's that they could do some extra steps and put them from the begining in the instructions in a better way. They don't really underline the importance of some points.

As well the software WinPC-NC is really really bad.
I can't really import something in it.
Either it opens the dxf files but there is nothing inside, or it cannot open them at all... What a piece of crap...
They should be ashamed of it.. and it has the moto: Becoming an expert ) in what ?? in having time lost and not knowing how to import your work in it ?


I could only draw simple drawings by miself in DXF and import them.. but this was not my wish for this machine.
I intend to take some drawings from free sites like : www.craftsmanspace.com/free-patterns and convert them in dxf and cut them.. but i see this is not possible with such software.

When it will be possible than I will be able to understand the machine a little more.. as now already I see some play in Z bridge.. and if I remove the play the machine start skipping steps..

I personally would release such machines wit nema23, woudl implement an arduino in them to make them super friendly for anyone and to be easy expandable to anyone.. and would implement estelcam controll from the factory..


But unfortunately you get what you pay for.. and I ust payed a lot of cash..
Hope Stepcraft will please me by introduction of the Laser cutting head, faster.. at least.

Hi dxtinct, the WinPC-NC shouldn't be used for importing DXF, even if it "could".

You should use a real CAM software and let WinPC-NC just read the generated G-Code.

The machines have some "bugs", but are very easy to fix.

I had to attach some elastics to the housing tube below the board to pull it from the metal case, because every time the Y axis traveled, it stickied to the metal case and stopped the axis.

I was baffled for that, and my solution was a monstrosity, but it works now.

Those are minor design flaws, but the machine is better than the competition (shapeoko/x-carve) in many aspects.

I did what Rory advised in this forum: I replaced the USB module for a Parallel one with a UC100 dongle.
Bought an UCCNC license, and I'm using Coreldraw and Aspire 8.0 to design my creations.
Some SC dedicated setup files are needed for UCCNC, but again, Rory helped me out with those.

And as a beginner, I almost never have issues, so this is the winning setup for me.
I have a lot of fun with my SC/2 420!

Btw: the SC team is indeed quite helpful: I had a strange error with my main board, and they just replaced it for free!