Hello New User with Questions

CNC Machines Shapeoko
1

I just purchased a SO3 off of marketplace and the “Hello World” test fails. The letters are crisp but it certainly will not fit on a sheet of paper. I also zero it to the bottom left corner and it starts off the paper. See the attached picture.

Anyway thank you for being on the forum and I look forward to being active and one day helping new people get started as well. image
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2

Is this an older machine? Does the controller have DIP switches?

If so, power down, and check their settings — there should be two sets:

  • one for motor which toggles between NEMA17 and NEMA23 and is set to the latter — ensure that those are set for NEMA23, but otherwise, leave them be
  • the other set is for micro-stepping — they are currently set for 4x micro-stepping, but the new default is 8x — change them to 8x, and things should be the normal size
2 Likes
3

Will definitely check that out when I get back home. I don’t know how to tell the age of the machine…I do know there are no limit switches though

4

If you machine does not have limit swithes it is pre Summer of 2016 most likely. In the Summer of 2016 the production changed to include limit switches. I think that was when they moved the controller from the rear of the gantry to the left side of the machine. When you take the cover off to look at your controller and take a good picture and post it. Some of the older boards need mods to accept things like the Carbide 3d probe. The older controllers are not a problem but you need to know which board you have for the future. Once you get the machine running open Carbide Motion and get the software version and if necessary upgrade so you can use Carbide Motion 4.x .

2 Likes
5

Correct.

Controller position is determined by machine model though:

  • Shapeoko 3/Stepoko — rear of gantry — this placement allows foregoing drag chains and just having direct runs to the controller
  • XL/XXL on left of machine — the larger sizes require drag chains, so might as well put the controller somewhere more accessible
6

image

This is the control board. The switches do look like I’m on N23 and 1/4. I’ll switch to 1/8 and see how that works.

Someone mentioned upgrading to run the newer carbide software. How do I go about doing that?

7

I tip my hat to you good sir. Flipped the switches to 1/8 and left the others at N23 and was able to get the hello world test to pass. Alignment looks spot on…well as good as my sharpie would allow anyway (saw some wiggle and flexing).

Now to figure out how to update to the latest version of CM

4 Likes
8

See:

You may need to hold down a “Prog” button rather than the Z-axis homing switch — but you’ll need homing switches. If you don’t want to roll your own, contact us at support@carbide3d.com and we’ll work it out.

2 Likes
9

Thanks, email sent as I’m a big fan of hitting the easy button. :joy:

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