halfway through carving my design the machine started carving the design about 2-3" lower than the rest.
so half of a word would be lower than the first half and carving it through part of the design that was already carved. any suggestions?
That typically indicates lost steps, which usually means your cut settings are too aggressive for the material. Try reducing your feed rate and/or depth per pass.
Thanks for the reply Iāll try that
Could be pots arenāt adjusted correctly.
Could be a loose pulley (misread the problemā¦Z shouldnāt play into this).
Or bad Vwheel tension.
Or too aggressive
Or uneven wasteboard
Or non-parallel Y axis rails
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Steps were lost (symptom) but actual cause is harder to guess because it could come from any or a combination of any reason suggested by the previous posters.
Could be mechanical (something is binding or is loose, or cut rates are too aggressive)
Could be electrical (undersized motors / inproper current setting)
Could be GRBL parameters (rapid rates or acceleration settings too high for instance)
Since your router ādroppedā half a line => something not right with the Y axis or the arrangement of the Y-axis.
If it just suddenly ādroppedā in one go without touching the material => steps were lost during rapids,
If it drifted while carving => something is binding or is loose, or cut rates are too aggressive.
Is there more to the original design above the P L Eā¦? Should that decorative fleur-de-lis element be below those letters like that, or above? Which carved first, the letters or the fleur-de-lis?
All the cuts look clean and everything looks like itās cutting as it should be except for the shift halfway through. I would guess your design is positioned beyond the operational boundaries of your XCarve, and when the machine tried to navigate to the areas it couldnāt reach, you lost steps on that āupwardā (backward) motion, and then everything carved after that motion would have carved slightly lower than it should have.
The PLE carved first then the decorative flourish (should be above) the PLE. Also in the other photo the SI was carved first then the D was carved lower
Yeah, that suggests to me that you were trying to carve the fleur-de-lis decorative flourish outside of the machineās reach. Everything after that action would be shifted down by the amount that the machine couldnāt travel up. Position your material more to the front of your machine so you can start ālowerā.
Ok thank you for the help
Feed rate 50in/min
Plunge rate 20in/min
Depth per pass .06in
Another possibility is that the bit āslippedā out of the collet. Iāve had that happen to me twice. Since my collet is fairly new, it may be that the bit is somewhat undersize. Also make sure the bit is not greasy or oily as sometimes new bits come pre-greased to prevent rusting.