Hey guys...im ready to pull my hair out over this one. Since may I've been building an FLA-100 CNC router. I ended up scoring a HobbyCNC Pro board off of ebay, pre-assembled. 305Oz-in Kelling motors. 36V supply, 15A..switching supply. Using south bridge heatsinks and a giant delta fan for cooling. Chips hardly even get warm.
Everything worked fantastic! Setup in Mach3 was pretty easy. Got everything working, did some test cuts...life was grand from about june..til..now.
So...I tried to cut something about 3 days ago, and man, was it losing steps! Only in the X direction, but not too many, just enough to notice. Ok. Stop the machine. Check EVERYTHING mechanical...everything seems fine. Ok. Run again...missed steps getting worse...
confusion.
Replace paralell cable. Same results. Unhook X axis so the motor freely turns without any resistance. You can feel it. Set pulses to 5. Same. Play with motor tuning..Originally if i ramped up the Accel/Vel, the problem went away, but now, its at all times.
At one point when i cold started the machine, it got about 3 passes in before it started missing steps..actually i shouldn't even say missing steps, if i place my hand on the motor/leadscrew, you can feel it slow down, then go the opposite direction for a step, then back to the original direction and slow down...Y and Z work fine..
OK. So more troubleshooting. Check the board. Resolder...EVERYTHING...even swap the driver chips around...there goes my friday night. Same results. Hell i threw another computer in there! Nadda!
i should mention, I've only mainly been trying the same few programs, which are bass clefs i was cutting out of a 2x4..actually just occurred to me, i wonder if my code is causing the problems...coming from SolidCAM..but its only in the X direction...uses a lot of G1 and G2 commands...
I would ask the guys at hobbyCNC but i read they won't deal with second owners?
Im just confused. NOTHINGS changed! Everything has been in place since May. Nothing looks burned on the board. its just the X direction and mainly during deceleration.
Im only cutting around 25-30ipm, I'm using one of those cheapo harbor freight HSS end mills, and an adjustable dimmer on my router..which make nice chips...but like i said, even if i change the federate, its there no matter what, just in one axis..which is leading me to believe its the HobbyCNC board..
Is there any specific part that might cause this? why over time? My only guess is a value drifted?
Thanks in advance guys...