Limit switch not recognised and Z has mind of own

1

Attempting to set engraver up.

I have an Arduino with an engraver shield and using Easel. The steppers are Nema 23. X&Y are belt driven with a 20 tooth sprocket. Z is 8mm ACME screw with 2mm pitch

In the Machine Inspector I can test the limit switches. X & Y work ok but Z does not. Have swapped switches around so not a wiring problem. I have enabled $20, $21 and $22

I have set up $100=5, $101=5 and $102= 320 or 188…976 depending if I use a ACME or 8 mm screwed rod.

With X and Y I have been able to adjust the settings which look very low compared with what I have researched and will need to finally set. (Micro step setting?)

Z is just not adjustable. Any alteration I make just has no effect. When I jog Z 1mm it moves about 8mm.

Any help will be most appreciated.

2

Do you have limit switch for Z hooked up to Arduino Pin11?
Z-limit have been re-assigned to Pin12

3

Thanks for reply.
The limit switch is connected to the engraver shield so no direct connect able to be made.

4

Which GRBL version is the engraver shield compatible with?

5

I was just coming to that assumption and was trying to determine if the shield is compatible. Easel says in Machine Inspector that it is GRBL 1.1f. At the moment I can only find that the shield I have is compatible with GRBL but not which version only that it is compatible with the UNO.
Appreciate your help but this may well be the source of my problems.
Solution?

6

You can test the switch by removing the shield and connect directly to the Arduino. Atleast that will confirm or rule out this as a flaw.

(it is not required to use two switches per pin as shown in the link)

7

I appear to be going round in circles.
Initially when in Manager I was able to test X & Y limit switches and they would indicate and for some reason they do not now they do however function as they stop the machine.

Is this nonsense but if I came back to GRBL 0.9 would that help?

For infok
$132=200.000
$131=290.000
$130=290.000
$122=10.000
$121=10.000
$120=10.000
$112=500.000
$111=500.000
$110=500.000
$102=188.976
$101=5.000
$100=5.000
$32=0
$31=0
$30=1
$27=1.000
$26=250
$25=500.000
$24=25.000
$23=0
$22=0
$21=1
$20=0
$13=0
$12=0.002
$11=0.010
$10=115
$6=0
$5=0
$4=0
$3=0
$2=0
$1=25
$0=10
$$
ok

Thanks for your assistance as I do think. I am making progress

8

IIRC the pin-arrangement was done from GRBL v0.9 so you would need v0.8

9

I grounded pin 11 and it had no effect. Grounding pin 12 stopped everything .
Will download v0.8 and see what happens.
This does explain some of the problems I have experienced

10

Typical grbl settings for a 500 mm X-carve with grbl version 1.1f

0=10 (step pulse, usec)
$1=255 (step idle delay, msec)
$2=0 (step port invert mask:00000000)
$3=3 (dir port invert mask:00000011)
$4=0 (step enable invert, bool)
$5=0 (limit pins invert, bool)
$6=0 (probe pin invert, bool)
$10=1 (status report mask:00000001)
$11=0.020 (junction deviation, mm)
$12=0.002 (arc tolerance, mm)
$13=0 (report inches, bool)
$20=1 (soft limits, bool)
$21=0 (hard limits, bool)
$22=1 (homing cycle, bool)
$23=3 (homing dir invert mask:00000011)
$24=25.000 (homing feed, mm/min)
$25=750.000 (homing seek, mm/min)
$26=250 (homing debounce, msec)
$27=1.000 (homing pull-off, mm)
$30=255. (rpm max)
$31=0. (rpm min)
$32=0 (laser mode, bool)
$100=40.000 (x, step/mm)
$101=40.000 (y, step/mm)
$102=188.947 (z, step/mm)
$110=8000.000 (x max rate, mm/min)
$111=8000.000 (y max rate, mm/min)
$112=500.000 (z max rate, mm/min)
$120=500.000 (x accel, mm/sec^2)
$121=500.000 (y accel, mm/sec^2)
$122=50.000 (z accel, mm/sec^2)
$130=290.000 (x max travel, mm)
$131=290.000 (y max travel, mm)
$132=88.000 (z max travel, mm)

11

A picture might help figure out what’s failing.

12

Hello Larry
Thanks for the typical settings which I used, however it appears to fail when I “Write the Configuration”

Go into Machine manager and I get “Alarm,MPos, 0.000,0.000,0.000>”

I disabled Hard limits but no change

13

I find that resolving low level issues with Easel is a little difficult because you don’t really know what Easel is doing.

I can help you more effectively if you talk directly to grbl. If you have the Arduino IDE installed you can use the IDE serial monitor to talk directly to grbl. Want to try that?

14

Very grateful if you can. Not sure if this Arduino is healthy

15

If you know how to use the serial monitor then bring it up. If not, read through this and see if that gets you going.

16

Yes I have it up

17

What version of grbl do you have loaded in?

What does the serial monitor output when you bring it up?

18

0.9
Grbl 0.9 [“ etc nothing of significance

19

Enter the following commands and post back the results.

First set $10=19

$$
$#
$G

20

For some reason unable to copy and paste

$$ gives me the set up parameters

$# gives me a number of G54, G55 etc all with three sets of 0.000

$G same