New to X-Carve-Calibrating

X-Carve Troubleshooting
1

I am new to CNC world and just got an X-Carve. I have been watching/reading about calibrating the stepper motors to travel the correct distance. Each tutorial explains to give the machine a command to move, let’s say, 200 mm. How do you give a command on the machine to move a certain distance? Is this done in Easel?

2

Not sure if this is the right way but what I’ve done is open easel, click carve, on the next page you can jog your machine. I changed the steps to jog the required distance and then made pretty sure I clicked the right button. No way do I want to send the Z 500mm downwards :grimacing:. Make sure you change that jog distance back to 0.1mm or similar afterwards.

3

easel has 4 buttons that set jog distance value
1in
.1in
.01in
.0001in

you can put your own value in by typing

whatever value is in when you click the arrow for Xleft, Xright, Yup, Ydown, Zraise or Zlower will be used

having a value too large will cause the machine to crash

thats the purpose of the $20 softlimits setting in grbl…

do a search on it

1 Like
4

Yes, as both Jacques and Jeremy said, just click the “Carve” button and a jog panel will appear on your right side of your screen. These buttons (arrows) will jog your machine in the direction and the distance given in the value box. (provided it is calibrated)

In order to successfully calibrate your machine first make sure each axis move in the right direction.
Use a ruler or similar and do a 1" jog command and check if the actual movement is approx 1". This will ensure the scaling factor is close and a 10" jog command won’t make the machine crash into its sides :wink:

When direction and scaling factor is good you are ready to precisely calibrate it, in order to do that jog the spindle to lower left corner and measure a large travel against a ruler so get exact reading. Take note of the jog command value (say 14") and actual travel. This will form the basis of your recalculation of “steps per mm” value in GRBL for the axis in question :slight_smile:

5

Thank you all very much! I never noticed that I could put any value in the distance box. I successfully calibrated the machine on all 3 axis. It was not off by much but it is peace of mind to know that it is perfect now.

7

Thank you. I will remember that.