Late night playing with the Nomad Pro. While waiting for materials to arrive from Carbide3D, I went out and got some small pine lumber to play with. I decided to write my son’s name on it so I created a simple .STL file with Tinkercad saved it, open in MeshCam and ran the Carbide Auto tool path. Selected softwood for the material and using square .125 cutters. The Name is only 5 mm in height. Easy cut I assumed.
I had the low profile vise holding the 3.5 inch x 3 inch x .75 inch piece of wood. When I went to Jog, I did rapid position, far left center. I then switch over to do manual X/Y placement and was slowly tapping the X to get closer to the stock’s edge when it then all of a sudden dropped Z like like a bomb. I was watching in slow motion in horror and looking at my computer screen to see if there was anything I could press it to stop it in it’s track but it went crashing into my vice. Once it hit the vise, about 2 seconds later it stopped dropping. Thinking back, I should have pressed the Nomad’s power button. Happened too fast. Anyways I was able to press the Z+ to raise it with no problem. I decided to home it and then zero the stock again. It went to cut the job and the spindle sounded fine. however, the name was suppose to be 5 mm deep. But it looked like it barely cut the surface.
His name is MAKAI with a star above the I.
So I decided to put in a new piece of wood, started up Carbide Motion again. It tested for tool length, no problem. Then I Jogged -> Rapid XY Postion -> I wanted to do Center but I heard a weird noise. As if it didn’t want to move. I decided to start recording just incase I hear it again. I then move the cutter far left, no issues. Middle no issues.
I still couldn’t go back to center, so I figured let’s Home this thing and start over. But then It started making a grinding noise.
It eventually stops on its own but when I try to home it again it says Limit Switch Error.
Any ideas? I am still confused as to why Z dropped the way it did when I was tapping for X movement.