New here and totally new to cnc. Just got finished setting up the new machine and went thru the proper steps, made several test projects and all seemed good.
I decided to load on a sheet for an actual billable job with some degree of confidence. It was a simple cabinet job nested on a 18mm sheet. First panel coming out sweet! Machine started the cut for panel 2 and started some crazy saw tooth action, worried but patient it quickly moved to its X axis cut and all was good. Until… started coming back towards me on Y and doing the crazy side step thing! I noticed right away the left side was basically being dragged along and I stopped. What gives?
Since this is a new set up, the first obvious things to check are:
- The cables to that side Y motor. Is it getting power and responding to commands.
- How tight is the drive belt on that side? Assuming you tensioned it correctly (which you probably did since it ran great for a bit) has the motor mount slipped a bit so the belt is loose? I had that happen once and it looked just like you describe.
If it’s not either of those then I’m sure Eric from Avid will jump into help. along with others. Are you running Mach4 or CNC12? Servos or steppers? They will ask…
Good luck,
Garth
Hi Garth, thanks for the suggestions. I am running a machine with nema 34 steppers and using cnc12. I noticed I can partially rotate that left side by hand with very little resistance. Belts feel tight. I noticed the green lights are out in one location in the control box though.
So, here’s an update. Went to look again this morning. I turned everything on and looked in the control box and all the green lights were on, except I had one red light that would blink next to a green light on the same “controller”? I tried to jog in Y slightly and still had the same issue. I shut everything down and turned it all back on ,red light went out and machine seems to operate properly. I should have mentioned two other things.
1- The machine could not recognize where it was in Y anymore, meaning if I tried to home it, it was many inches off.
2- Maybe totally unrelated but this machine seems to has a personal issue with my hardwired smoke and heat detectors in my shop. Appears to be maybe radio frequency. I have many machines and they require more power and have never experienced this before.
Thanks again J
Was the red light on one of the “motor drives”?
There are other read lights on the Acorn board, and those are normal.
If so follow this troubleshooting step:
This can tell is if you have a dead motor, dead drive, or a bad cable (or one that’s not plugged in all the way)
If these steps fail create a support ticket so we can get you more help (and any warranty parts if that’s neccessary)
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