[Stnq]

Okay, so what can create backlash on only belt driven machine? Loose belts? I'll tighten them then. I'll make sure everything that even remotely touches the motor is fixed in place.

By the way, do I understand this correctly? I have a table that has ability to be adjusted (it's on three legs, two fixed and one adjustable) but then I lay a sort of crate on top of this, where the material can be supported to be cut. IF they're not perfectly, dead level - could *that* make the eliptic issue I was talking about? Because I can't say with 100% certainty I had the machine dead leveled back then. I was focusing on motor movement too much to be 100% certain.

I want to thank you again for your time and letting me bounce questions off you - I will be in my workshop tomorrow/ day after tomorrow and I will make the necessary adjustments, then come back to you.

[vakeiros]

lost steps are nothing to do with backlash, lost steps mean that the motor tried to move but it was too hard for him so he skipped a step, but for mach it's like it moved, mach doesn't know that the motor didn't move because it doesn't have an feedback system, there are some closed loop systems that manage this but yours doesnt have this. loose steps usually are due to:
- higher velocity than the motor can handle
- higher accelaration than the motor can handle
- pulse length too small so the driver can't deal with it
- too much inertia for the motor

[Stnq]

Hey, did you see my other question regarding the motor moving after I stopped pushing the button, like it just keeps going for a bit after I release the button. Do I correct this by velocity/acceleration there? And what does the "Step pulse" and "dir pulse" do? Any particular numbers I should input there?

[vakeiros]

not sure about that, in theory if the machine is all squared it doesn't really matter if its dead leveled or completely out of level, IF all the machine is connected and all squared, like I said I've ZERO experience with plasmas, don't even know how they look like XD

If I were you I would start to make sure all the machine moved nice and smooth with it linear motion (no belts attached), all lubed and moving well by hand.
than I would start with the pulleys and bearings, same thing, all clean, smooth moving parts, check all the set screws if they are well tighten

from what I know from plasmas it has no cut forces on it so the load should be always the same cutting or not, not like a mill machine that has to push the mill into the material itself to cut so if the machine has smooth moving by hand with motor it will have too

now check the motor pulley set screws all nice and tight, the belt must be tight but no to tight it will put the effort on the motor and the motor shaft of a nema23 usually is 6-6.35mm so not that strong...

after all this comes the connections and calibrations, if you do it like I said should be up and running in no time...

first check the micro stepping you set, and put the correct amps for your motor on the driver switches
second check the roughly the travel of the machine on 1 full turn on the motor shaft, do the math like I told you and you'll have a rough value of the steps per mm you should get.
third make the axis calibration and see the value you get and it should be close to your calculated value.
forth make a bigger test to check if it's all good.

PS. the bigger travel you make the calibration more precise will be the result, keep in mind it also depends on how precise you can measure the distance traveled by the machine...

about those big numbers you say that people have on they're machines it's all relative, imagine someone with a 32 microstepping, using ballscrews with 4mm pitch with 1.8º motors, so 200 steps per turn, 32 microstepping, 4mm pitch = 200*32/4= 1600 pulse per mm, this mean you'll have a movements of 1/1600 mm it's crazy too much in my opinion... and the more microstepping increases the possibility of lost steps... in acurate milling machines 1/100mm it's great movement LOL

well try it well and let me know the results.

[Stnq]

So to compile what I should do in terms of calibration:

Set all motors to 3.3A
Set all motors to 1/16 microsteps (to smoothen the movement?)

Is that correct?

I will do what you wrote, it'll take me a day or two to get to the shop and set it all up. I'll get back to you once I'm done, thanks! Is there a way to notify you about my response?

[vakeiros]

Hey, did you see my other question regarding the motor moving after I stopped pushing the button, like it just keeps going for a bit after I release the button. Do I correct this by velocity/acceleration there? And what does the "Step pulse" and "dir pulse" do? Any particular numbers I should input there?

yeah it should be about that... you should let me know what values you have there... it's should not be a problem if the numbers on mach3 keep changing while the machine moving, it's just a "delay" issue. the values actually depend on the machine configuration and motors and lots of stuff. let me know the current values and we'll work relative to those