Z-Axis is off and not cutting all the way through acrylic

X-Carve Troubleshooting
1

I’ve made more than a dozen tests now, and none of them cut all the way through the 1/8" acrylic material, and I need a complete cut all he way through. I’ve tried setting the depth of the material deeper than it really is, I’ve tried setting the depth of the cut deeper than it should be and none of these experiments cut through the acrylic all the way.

I’m using a 1/8" bit. I lowered the bit tip onto the acrylic, then lifted it by a 1 inch increment with the up arrow on the computer, then measured the gap, and it measured 1.25". It was 1/4" higher than it should have been, I think this might be causing the material to not be cut all the way through. The z-axis is not right somehow? How do I adjust this?

2

Did you tell easel what a drive you are using the steps are different between the acme rod and the m8 rod. In the set up in easel you specifiy

3

Hi Joe, yes, I chose ACME in setup. Someone here looked up my order and it is indeed ACME.

I just double checked the bit and it is in all the way and tight.

4

That’s weird that it’s so perfectly 25% off. It makes me think that it’s not a hardware failure, and more likely software. What happens if you jog it up one half inch?

5

I re-homed and put a different bit on, restarted my Mac, restarted the X-Carve, and it cut all the way through!! Yay. But it cut very choppy. I made a perfect circle from Easel’s circle tool and the edge is wavy and not smooth. The belts keep loosening and the eccentric nuts loosen (a lot - sometimes the back right one falls off during the job). Is all this loosening normal?

6

I would medium Loc-Tite everything!!

7

Yeah what Dennis said- get yourself some loctite. I’m planning to loctite every single fastener on mine.

8

For the eccentric nuts use medium (blue) Loctite… To tighten the eccentric nuts remember to use the button cap hex key side. The eccentric nut is really for positioning (tensioning) the rollers. If you can’t access the button cap side of the bolt consider cutting down a 3mm hex wrench for access…

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Loctite-0-2-fl-oz-Threadlocker-Blue-242-209728/100371826

This Loctite is not specifically designed to be applied to already fastened nuts. Though, I have not had any loosening of my Z axis eccentric nuts after properly tightening then and applying a single drop of Loctite 242 to the end of the threads.

9

Prevoius thread on the subject.