Problems with initial HandiBot-Tour

Just received my handibot today and encountered a few problems.

1) The instructions said to start the Quick Launch App (but that app does not exist) so lauched the HandiBot-Tour instead
2) The Z-Zero as part of that tour has the dust connector colliding with the motor (yeah I left it on and just connected the clip under the brushes)
3) The test cut was really deep

After that did a bit of debugging and I found that the home tool appears to move to the right by 1/2" after reaching the far left. *But* this causes the dust collector to collide with the motor if moved to the right by 6". Looking at the code for the macro it looks like it hasn't changed in a while so I'm not sure what is going on. I can remove the dust cover for the Z-Zero *but* I will still get the collision during milling if I use the full 6" in X.

For the test cut being deep I believe that is because the Z-Zero does not set the zero and it needs the Resume during the home to set it (I must have clicked on quit instead of resume; have not tried again). Just a guess though.

Am I doing something wrong?

Curtis,
Try this: in your macro editor (folder icon on left side bag bar in FabMo) edit macro #3. In that macro there is a variable at the top called $x_backoff. It should be set to 0.075–change it to 0.25 and save the macro. Run the homing routine again and see if the spacing is correct.
For the test cut—yes you should update the z home location. Do you have a scrap piece of wood on which you can run the test cut again? You can also send the z axis to z=0 with the manual controls to check if the bit is touching the material after homing.

Brian

Yeah I will edit the macro#3 to change my home a little more to the left. The Z-Zero also looks like it has it's own code to home the X so I will also edit that code and test.

I did the zero and then checked the Z and yes it is indeed on the top of the material (so that is working). For the test cut I will do that later today (after work).

I did however think about it more and two more observations:
1) If I did leave the zero at the homing location it would have milled in the air and not further down into the material. So seems like I did zero it.
2) When I do a preview of the job that was submitted it shows a Z of 0.92"

How do I interpret this 0.92"?

I would have interpreted it as 0.92" deep from the zero point. But that would have gone right through the material so I assume it is the max Z travel for the cut and since I don't know where the cuts starts the 0.92" doesn't mean much to me.

How deep is the test cut suppose to be from the zero point?

0.92" is the total range of travel in the Z axis for the cut--though max Z depth would be a more helpful measure I agree. In the test cut, the Z first jogs to a safe height of 0.8"--then at the point in the cut where the letters are being VCarved, it reaches a depth of -0.12"--giving the range of 0.92" throughout the cut file.

I'm trying to piece together why the cut went too deep on your first attempt--If you had selected "quit" when prompted in the homing routine, it would have left z zero just 0.075" from the very top of travel. When Z jogged to 0.8" at the start of the file, it would have hit the top hard stop and lost position--shifting the Z zero down by 0.725" Still not enough to cause the cut to be too deep.

However--if you did hit resume to offset the Z based on the homing routine that I did at the factory--but for some reason the Z axis stalled when making that initial jog, that could have caused enough of an offset to plunge into your material. One of the reasons that we do the test cut both at the factory and as the first cut for the customer is to compare the results of the two--and troubleshoot anything that might need to be tweaked after shipping the tool cross country. It may be that you'll need to follow some quick steps to re-align the z motor (just a couple of screws taken loose and tightened)--you'll find instructions for that here: [sites.google.com]

I've never really tried to work out a relationship between time of year and certain tech support issues, but I imagine the hot-cold-hot-cold-hot of winter shipping can put strain on the aluminum joints of the tool.

A few updates:
1) I took a break from the other cuts I was doing and replayed the test cut. I zero-ed out the bit and checked that setting it to zero it was on the material (before going to zero I set it to 0.75 and check that a scrap just fits; and it did). I then re-did the cut and it just cut the air this time. So odd again

2) I did find that the router wasn't perfectly vertical. So removed it and adjusted the holder. Even with that the dust adapter still hits the stepper. So still need the offset adjust in home.

3) My daughter wanted to carve my wife's name into a piece of walnut that is also the letter of her first name for christmas!!! Did that setup in vcarve and the name carve was fine. Swapped bits to cut (after changing zero) and it seemed to cut that out smaller than the drawing. So likely I need to learn more around vcarve. Adjusted and it was fine. Depth was 1/8 (so just a little deeper than the test cut should have been)

I will give the test program another try when my daughter isn't waiting.

Actually just had an idea for maybe why it was too deep. When doing the tour it has you zero it out first (and then do the home). That first zero attempt the dust collector was on and when that collided with the stepper if that caused it to not lower (but it thought it was lowering) then it would think the zero is inside the material. Then in the home I would have done resume and then the cut would be too deep.

The size thing sounds like something going on in the actual design of the file--maybe the choice of "inside" vs "outside" in the profile cut that cuts out the part?

Still curious about the cutting in the air issue with the test cut. You're checking that when z=0, the bit is touching the material--then when the cut is run and the z axis is driven to some negative value, the bit is above the material...somehow that position must be getting lost. To rule out mechanical causes, we should try slowing the tool waaaay down. In the Axis tab on the configuration menu there are max-federate values for all three axes and max jog speeds. If you set all of these to 60 inches per minute--both jog and federate. Plus set the "maximum jerk" very low for all three axes. A value of 25 should do it. See if you can run the file with those settings--then we can rule out software issues at least.

Brian