I completed building my brand new XXL, and all is good - I can connect the cutter to Carbide Motion, all axis ‘jog’ as expected, etc.
My issue is with setting up the homing switches… I have followed the instructions to the letter, and all switches are making their respective connections at the end of travel, but for some reason when I try to enable the homing function within Motion, the Z-axis responds per the manual, but the Y axis runs to the back of the frame, hits the back and stops (as expected), but ~that’s it~… it doesn’t leave the wall, and the software just stalls, seemingly waiting for the Y-axis to report something back.
If I try to stop and re-start the process, I get stuck in this same endless loop!
Anyone have any ideas, before I attempt to work through this with the C3D guys later today?
Please check and see if you have good switches. When you power up with the newer boards there’s a steady blue light which indicates power, and another which blinks on, then off — the blinking one is for the homing switches — if you press a switch, it should light — make sure that all 3 will activate the light.
Usually this is caused by having the X- and Y- switches reversed — please check that when you’re checking the above.
I seem to have 3 lights on the control board - the main (blue) power light, a flashing red light slightly above it (I assume to indicate Tx/Rx of instructions?), and the blue light you mention below the homing switch connections.
Depressing any one of the 3 homing switches (individually) causes the blue light under the connection to shine, and extinguish when the switches are released.
I tried reversing the X & Y switch connections, and that caused the Z axis to ‘go a little funky’(?!?) - the cutter mount raised to it’s max, but the limit switch was ‘ignored’, and the motor kept trying to raise the cutter head, so I reversed the X & Y back.
If it helps, my PC is Win 7 (with all MS SW SP, patches & updates applied), i5 proc, 8GB RAM, CMotion v3.0.366. This PC has been dedicated to running this specific SW only, and had a clean OS install just yesterday, complete with almost 300SW updates applied!)
Using the flashlight on my cell I can ~just about~ read the connection requirements on the silkscreen, and directly above the connections to ensure I’m correctly wired (X to far left, then Y, then Z to the right. The remaining 2x connections to the far right are unused, correct?.
It’ll start running the Z axis test without issue, but then when it tries to run the Y axis, the gantry moves all the way to the rear of the machine, hits the limit switch and stops dead. it won’t jog backin (as the Z axis did), and sits there indefinitely.
I followed the instructions to ensure that my settings values were correct (Homing = ‘true’, machine ranges to XXL requirements of 850 & 850 respectively)
That’s exactly how mine looks (though I used painter’s tape to label my connectors… Your way is smarter, and shall be ‘borrowed’!
I’ve fired an e-mail to the support team - hopefully they can help me out in short order. Assuming the issue isn’t an “ID10t” error at this end, I’ll share the results on this thread. Hopefully it might help others in the future?
I think we may have a mis-understanding of what “homing” is in this context — it’s the machine finding the machine origin, which is defined as the top, back, right corner of the machine.
Once that’s done you have to manually set up some position on the machine to be the origin.
My z axis works fine, x isn’t operating at all, and y moves to the rear and stops. CMotion won’t clear out of “homing”, and each time I shutdown the software (and cutter) and restart, I’m prompted to initialize homing again…
No apology required, sir! I’m brand new to both this tool, and to these terminologies (I was alsoworking on this “challenge” 'til VERY late last night, then up at the crack of dawn again too, retracing my steps to find any faults that I could’ve made!
I might hold-off on any re-flash 'til I’ve spoken to Tech support @ Carbide 3D - I don’t want to be held responsible for trying anything ‘unauthorized’ (unless you’re a C3D representItive, Will?)
I made a video to demonstrate my issue - though interestingly, the y-axis came to a halt BEFORE the limit switch was depressed on this run… let me see if I can post the vid
(And please excuse the accent of this ex-pat Brit in Canada!)
are all the settings set for an xxl? mabie post your settings for everyone to view and someone might see somthing.Just an idea if you are waiting to hear back from c3d.
I believe so - per the limit switch instructions, I changed the table x and table y settings (lines 1006 & 1007) to “850” each to match the requirements for the XXL
change your $130 and $131 to match your table atm its set at 400.00 and 425.00 thats the stock shapeoko 3 size you have the xxl correct? try changing too 850.00 like you see in my pic,ive seen others set it to around 840.00 ish but i havnt had any issues with mine so in mdi try $130=850.00 and send and $131=850.00 and send and try to run your homing again
