Both Bitzero and Bitsetter act weird. When I initialize the machine with the settings “bitsetter installed”, and write it to the machine, it works fine. Sometimes. Sometimes when the spindle is about to be lowered to touch bitsetter it stops after some 2 inches. And it says “initialization failed”. Then I have to re-write the settings w/o the bitsetter marked, re-initialize the system, and re-write again with bitsetter marked. And usually it works. Sometimes I have to repeat that several times. That is so annoying!
The same with the Bitzero. With the corner setting the bit in the hole of the device touches the horizontal margins, but the vertical ones it touches the wall, stops and declares the process failed, so I have to re-initialize the machine all over again.
When I have a project where the precision of the zero point is not that crucial I already do not use the bitzero any more. But that is not the point of having one IMO!
That is really annoying. What should I do? Consider the machine broken?
Based on your description I believe the problem has nothing to do with settings not being persistent, but rather an intermittent/flaky electrical signal to the probe/bitsetter.
Indeed, both the bitsetter and bitzero use the same signal back into the controller, so if you’re having issues with both devices, chances are there is a weakness somewhere in the wiring to the controller to the “probe” input.
The fact that the bitsetter movement sometimes stop after 2 inches is typical of when the machines detects the probe being already activated while it’s still far from the bitsetter button, which would indicate that the probe input registered as active on the controller.
Same for the bitzero that if the probe signal connections intermittently makes and breaks, part of the zeroing routine may work and some other part may randomly fail.
Do you have a splitter board at the controller side where both the bitsetter and bitzero wiring are connected ? if so check that it is correctly seated/firmly connected. More generally, inspect the bitsetter and bitzero wiring all the way from the devices to the controller, look out for a pinched wire or faulty connector.
One “easy” way to figure out if you do have a faulty connection is to go to the Settings pages, there is a section there at the bottom of one tab called “GRBL active input pins”, and when you push the bitsetter button, it should read “PROBE”. Now, wiggle the bitzero/bitsetter wiring and splitter board, and check whether “PROBE” appears again at any time.
You should also contact support@carbide3d.com so that they can troubleshoot this problem with you.