Hope you are all having an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend! I am Oxing this

General CNC CNC Routers
, ,
1

Hope you are all having an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend!

I am Oxing this weekend. I posed some problems that I was having with Motor heat and Tinyg some of you responded with ideas that I implemented and I thought I would bring you up to date.

This is really getting frustrating as I spend more time troubleshooting than cutting. After a successful day or two last week, I started to cut some parts yesterday. Immediate failure twice with good ole Tinyg blinking the red LED. Both times the part failed during the making of hole 4 of 27. A really simple part actually, drill 27 round-bottom holes in a piece of pine.

So, after the changes I made last week, which I thought solved my Tinyg blinking problem (moving sensor wires away from motor wires) didn’t really solve the problem. This time I turned off all six limit switches. To my joy I was able to make 20 pieces of my project (27 holes each) however, while making piece 21 I am back to the blinking LED - Frustrating as hell.

I used to be concerned about my OX accuracy, now I am more concerned about reliability of the components. I have no real idea why Tinyg blinks the LED, perhaps someone can list the reasons. I’ve heard bad gcode, hot drivers, etc. I’m not even sure it’s a Tinyg issue, maybe Chilipepper is not delivering gcode properly. Too many moving parts I’m afraid. Will TinyG start the flashing LED if it is starved for code?

Is anyone really running any significant projects with the combination of TinyG and Chilipepper? I mean my project is really simple, takes about three minutes to drill the holes, then I repeat. If I were running a longer project I’d be really concerned about it actually running long enough to complete - at least it’ good for material suppliers as I get to waste more boards!

If TinyG fails when it gets bad gcode, how often does Chili pepper deliver bad code? Or does it? Is this a buffering issue? Does anyone use something other than Chilipepper? Something that is not web dependant? Don’t really need the viewer, nice but my CAM software does that.

Sound like I’m frustrated? Yep! Don’t mind troubleshooting sometimes, in fact I like it. But not everyday. I need a more reliable machine - yes and it is a hobby. I keep hearing that TinyG boards are being used more and more in production machines. Really? The must know something that I don’t (Quite likely) Any Help would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Ted

2

Ok then. After my rant, I went out to try good ole Ox again. All powers up good OX moves. Sent the gcode file and bang, stops at the first hole. Crap!

Good ole SPNDIR LED starts Blinking. System is cold all fans are working, sadly OX is not!

Here’s a sample of the Gcode:

(T2 D=19.05 CR=0. TAPER=90DEG - ZMIN=-7. - SPOT DRILL)
G0 G90 G94 G17
G21
G53 Z0.

(DRILL2)
M5
M9
T2
g0 z15
M3 S8000
G54
M9
G0 X74.025 Y15.3
Z15.
Z5.
Z4.
G1 Z-7. F75. ---- Stops after this line
G0 Z5.
X45.45
Z4.
G1 Z-7. F75.
G0 Z5.
X16.875 Y15.288
…

NOW What? Really frustrating!

Ted

3

Are you running a VFD / Spindle? Are u using shielded wire? Could be interface from the wiring if not shielded

4

James - Your supposed be eating burgers - thanks for the post.

Yeah, been through all the shielded wire stuff and yes using shielded wire. Running a quiet ?? 300k Spindle. Real bummer today!

5

The gcode looks a little weird. I don’t think I usually see numbers with a period and no fractional part. E.g. G1 Z-7. F75. That looks odd. I would expect G1 Z-7 F75

What are you using to generate your gcode?

6

Also what tinyg firmware version are you running?

7

Ben, thank you. I am using Fusion 360 to generate the gcode. I will run a cleanup on the code and give that a try. Weird, in that I have made 20 pieces using this code, but hey I’ll give it a try. Also, don’t know the Tinyg firmware version,but pretty sure it is the most current- doe 420.?? Sound right. I can look it up in the morning.

Thanks again for your time,

Ted

8

When tinyG was new to me I chased a problem like this… it ended up being tinyG thinking I was exceeding a soft limit - the blinking LEDs triggered and machine freezes. Check your g-code vs. your defined machine maximum working dimensions and limits. This was frustrating to me as I had not exceeded any hardware limit switches.

9

Thanks for the suggestion Matt. I look into it.

Ted

10

another question about the wiring… did you ground the shielding on one side to a common ground? On the g-code note I use Fusion360 as well and don’t have a problem with it, tho i’m using Mach3 and not chilipepper. Does tinyg with with mach3? might be worth a shot and try out he mach3 demo and see if you see the same behavior.

11

Thanks, Mach3 has a demo I can try? Cool!

12

Yep, its limited to only 500 lines of gcode but that should be enough to see if the same thing happens