My experience may sound stupid to many, but I thought someone new to machining like me may save a cutter and some material after reading this.
I was cutting some 1/8 6061 Aluminium plate, and zeroed the machine as usual, but while I was zeroing the Z axis, I pressed 1mm instead of 0.01 once (perhaps skipped more 0.01 steps when I pressed the cutter against the plate), causing the motor to skip. Then the cutter went straight into the plate when cutting and snapped. I thought I had the wrong feedrate but it’s the zeroing that caused the problem. Although the cutter looks right on top of the plate, the program thought it’s way lower because the steppers on the Nomad do not have any feedback system.
So once you think you let the stepper motor skip, restart Carbide Motion and let it home again. Even you don’t break anything the zeroing will be off and the part won’t come out correct.
I set the topic to Feature Request because I’d like to have an option to home the machine again without restarting the program. I do not have the latest version so sorry if it has already been added.
I tried again with correct zeroing later, and the part comes out nicely. If anyone is interested in it I would love to share the settings and pictures of the finish. I used Inventor HSM as my CAM software for a while and can at least program some easier parts. It appears to be very similar to Fusion 360, so if anyone is interested I can explain the workflow too.
Thanks for reading. Hope this helps.
p.s. Is the correct term for a stepper motor not being able to perform a step due to lack of torque/blockage “skipping”? This is the best I can describe it.