I’m new to CNC’ing. I bought a second hand Shapeoko 3 XXL a week ago and for the most part things are going well. But, now half way through my cut, my z-axis “pops” up. I’m not sure what this is called or what I can search for to try diagnose this problem. Any help would be appreciated. Here is a link to a video showcasing what is happening.
[Dropbox]
Belt-drive Z-axis — I believe the problem would be insufficient belt-tension (check the M4 belt tension bolt) — needs to be guitar-string tight.
Arguably the fix is to update to the Z-Plus (soon to be discontinued):
or HDZ…
Thank you for such a quick reply Will!
Looks like a neat upgrade to make, thanks for the advice!
If you have a belt Z it looses steps really easy. As @WillAdams suggested check your belt tension. Also the retract height can cause to loose steps if you set it too high. Too high depends on the height of the material. The more your increase the retract height the longer it takes to cut a project. So the .1" should work. You can set it at what you want but the smaller the better.
When you jog you are limited by the configuration. However during the execution of gcode the machine will try to go as far as the gcode tries to send it. Eventually you hit the mechanical limits. When you hit the mechanical limits you loose steps and then the machine will try to execute movements as if it were still in synchronization with the homing and material height set in CC.