Hello Nomad community, I just got through doing the wrench tutorial and was going to send this feedback to Carbide3D service but decided to post it here instead for the benefit of others getting started with the Nomad.
Just received my blonde bamboo Inner Circle Batch 1 unit yesterday. While I am not new to machining and 3D printing, I am new to CNC machining and am probably squarely the target audience for the Nomad. I will mention every issue I can think of that I ran into no matter how small, obvious, or easily remedied, so please forgive if it sounds a little weenie at times.
First step in the tutorial is mounting the wasteboard. Although the tutorial says the device comes with all the listed materials, mine did not come with double-sided tape. Luckily I had some servo tape around and that was not a showstopper. Also although the unit came with the appropriate spindle and collet wrenches it does not come with an Allen key for the M6 wasteboard screws, which I did not have handy at the location I was testing.
Upon connecting using Carbide Motion the first issue I ran into was that the machine would not home. First thing I found was that the e-stop switch was activated, so be sure to check that. Upon restarting Carbide Motion, my unit still would not home. I moved the spindle carriage manually to the middle, and still nothing. I believe in retrospect the fact that it was manually movable meant that the motors were not getting power.
In checking further around the unit, I moved the table manually toward the back of the unit. Still nothing. Then I rebooted the computer running Carbide Motion and finally got some homing action.
However the unit stopped again before measuring the tool length. This to me seemed like a communication issue, so I switched USB ports on the computer and this seemed to fix things. I am not sure which of these actions, or whether a combination of some or all of them ultimately worked.
Then it was time to zero the cutter on the stock material, which is done by manually moving the cutter with Carbide Motion. At some point I switched to 10mm steps and accidentally pressed Z+, and the software promptly dumped my project and indicated a limit switch was hit.
The unit was effectively locked up at this point, anything I tried resulted in the limit message. So I powered it down, manually moved the carriage again, and reconnected to Carbide Motion, and things seemed to be working again.
Got the cutter positioned and when I went to zero the position values, for some reason Y would not go to zero, staying at 0.01. Not sure whether that is significant or not.
Then it was time to start the job. During the initial homing, the software threw a message something like āMachine parameters are invalidā ā¦ clicked to clear and the homing completed. Then during the tool length measurement the message came up again. Clicked to clear and the measurement completed.
The cutting then started and finished without incident.
So Iām not sure whether my experience was typical or whether my unit, or perhaps the laptop Iām using to run it, is glitchy. If anyone has feedback to offer please do. Will see if any of these issues persist.
Overall once things got going, operation was smooth. So far happy, save for the startup frustrations. A startup troubleshooting guide may be helpful at some point.