Losing steps - overheating?

X-Carve
1

I cut several pieces successfully on my X-carve yesterday, which has been working fine. But it was about 17 minutes into a longer job when it started audibly losing steps (clicking or jumping) and slowly started cutting the wrong positions. I had run 3 other pieces for a total of maybe 40 minutes of cutting time shortly before starting this one, with no problems. There were maybe 15-20 minutes between each piece while I cleaned up the finished pieces and setup the new ones. Is it possible the steppers were overheating? I have the older control box and NEMA 17 motors. I used the same settings that have always worked for birch plywood on lots of other things I have made, but this was a long cut on a thicker board so it was running longer than most things I’ve done.

Thanks!
Scott

2

If a driver overheat and go into protect mode you won’t hear a stalled stepper, it will just go silent.
I suspect the motors just couldn’t cope with the load they were given, the gshield can’t supply enough power / motors not strong enough to make consistent work.

3

Thanks. I just wonder why it would work fine for awhile and then suddenly not work. I have cut quite a few pieces with no trouble, just nothing that has taken this long all at once.

4

One possibility is dust build-up => poorer heat dissapation.
Or previous carves just havent been long enough to make it trip.