I’ve had the Onefinity x-50 Journeyman for a few months and have made a few projects with it. I started my production run of my mothers day catchalls and after doing 3 perfectly fine, the 4th decided to go very deep all of a sudden destroying the motor in the router and the bowl bit. I used Fusion360 to design and generate GCode. Passes were set at 3mm with multiple passes for this part of the cut to get to final depth. I had made a bunch of tests before this run and it had worked so I gave this a shot.
This isn’t the first time a project has cut deeper than it was supposed to, it happened on another project but I was able to stop that in time. As I now have to wait a week for a new router to arrive, is there any first steps at diagnosing what went wrong mid-run?
I’ve experienced the same type of Z failure at least two times in that past year. The last one being just last week while making surfacing passes on some live edge. I’ve yet to determine exactly what the cause was though.
I’ve made it a habit to hover over the e-stop until it appears all is well.
AndyP The simulation looked fine so I ran it. I broke the job up by tool types because I am unaware of a way to program the job to give me a pause to change tools. I also wanted to keep the file size down as it was going to be running thru 28 of these. The last time I had this happen it was progressive and I caught it in time and it only left minor blemishes on the saw till I was making. When I stopped that job and ran it again it cut fine on the 2nd run.
This time, I saw it finish the 2nd fine and I was called upstairs and by the time I came back down it smelled like badly burned electronics and the bit was bent. Also the automatic vacuum had shut itself off, but the Onefinity was still going thru the motions lol. It seems fine, I’ll find out next week. I think I will do what pwpacp has suggested.
There is a recurring theme of posts on the forum where people are reporting losing the Z height or having the Z height change typically after probing the height and they seem to be related to a loose or poor connection of the Z axis stepper motor cable connection. It may be applicable here as well since the issue manifested itself on the work offset near the rear of the machine further from the controller, is it possible the cable connected to the Z axis stepper motor was pulled in any way?
Check the crips in the connector going to the Z axis. I fought this same problem. Things would run great, but then, out of no where, the Z would plunge deep. I luckily notice a bad crimp within the connector.
You could job the z axis while wiggling the cable to see if the Z stops responding.
Referencing Derek’s point, I investigated the Z connectors on my setup and found that to be the unlikely source for me. Of course, that doesn’t speak for your situation though.
When I installed drag chains last year I added extra dollops of hot glue to each of the cable ends to minimizing possible movement.
That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a bit of a wonky pin connection though…seemingly, the condition would reoccur more often I think.
So I found my Z connector is fine, but my X cable is actually wonky when vibrated. I switched the Z cable out and it was fine so it looks like I have a problem with my x-cable. Not sure if this is the culprit but its a start.
I wonder if the machine is somehow building up a static charge and that is what’s causing these issues with the Z. The only reason I say this is because he ran several tests before and all was good, the static charge would/could be possibly the only other determining factor. I would run several grounding wires connected to several point around the machine going to ground in the wall to eliminate that possibility.
If a bad Z connector is the culprit, simply carve in the air (set Z mid point) and jiggle the connector going to the stepper for Z and see if you can duplicate the issue.
TonyStark39 I hadn’t thought about static build up, I hadn’t noticed anyone building ground cables into their table builds when doing a cursory glance at other’s setups.
TheyCallMeJohn I will give it a try again tonight without the router.
Yeah I’ve had my old machine go off into the weeds and had to kill the process because the controller lost communication with the stepper due to static discharge because I was cutting fiberglass and touched the bed. Get some ground cables setup in various places/contacts and give that a shot. Curious on your feedback.
This may seem a simplistic answer so humor me. I had a similar occurrence using a 1/4" downcut bit. The culprit, after having made multiple cuts the collet had loosened and the bit was drawn down into the wood breaking the bit and ruining the piece. fortunately i was in attendance or i would have faced the ruined router and who knows what else.
Clean the collet receiver and the collet every tool change and periodically even if using the same tool. Also don’t forget to clean any adapter being used. At a minimum use compressed air to clean it the dust. I keep alcohol and qtips to do a quick clean. Alcohol will not impact the metal. If grease is observed use a degreaser then alcohol. No lubrication is needed at the collet!
Tighten the collet correctly! Never ever ever use the manual push button to hold the spindle/collet in place if using the wrenches on the Makita router! The button is made to lock the spindle for hand tightening or loosening only. Use two wrenches as designed to do your initial loosening and final tightening. Position wrenches so that you are squeezing them together with one hand, using two hands you will eventually slip and at a minimum bust some knuckles. Bits will eventually become loose so retighten often so it does not drop.
Check for obstructions. The machine does not care if you left a hammer or drill in the way! It doesn’t care if your vacuum hose is in the way. If the machine impacts something while moving the stepper motors keep moving and counting steps. For example, if a piece of wood is blocking one side of the machine from coming fully forward, the other side will keep moving and the obstructed side will not. The controller will still report that the non moving side is in the correct location. Same can happen on the Z if the slider hits something on the way down. From that point on it will cut to shallow. Conversely, if that hits something and is impeded on the way up, all cuts will be too deep from them on. I know of one case where in an enclosure, in the back left quadrant , the vac hose was preventing.z from rising.
Look at the graphic preview of your cut!! Not the one from you software, the one from the controller. You cannot see it on touchscreen. You need a remote view from PC, table or whatever. Move that 3D view around. Get it at a point where you can see how far the z-axis goes down across your full cut. Everyone talks about the cheat code but no one can scroll through thousands of lines and be able to catch something. The controller gives you and obvious view if at least based on the G code that something’s gone wrong. There are some bugs where the onefinity looks at the G-Code differently then vectric. In the case of using multiple tool numbers when you do the preview in the vectric software it will look perfect but if you look at the preview from the oneinfinity controller you will see that the Z axis is much deeper than what you expected because it is stacking the tools versus replacing them. It’s hard to explain but there are other forum posts about what to watch out for. It drove me crazy for a while as I was used to using multiple tool numbers.
Wires wires and more wires, connections connections connections! As someone said before this machine is very very rigid. You’re much more likely to break bits or knock things off the table than you are to break the machine. That being said the weak point is definitely the original molex connectors that were being used. They were standard off the shelf connectors and showed a propensity for the pins to become loose and retract from their slots causing at a minimum and intermittent connection. The new connectors that I saw shipping with the x50 are much more beefy and completely enclosed the entire connector and the associated wires. Get rid of, replace or reenforce all connections. Test often!
Of course there are many more possibilities but I think these are the most likely culprits and solutions.
I had similar problems. The third it happened I was watching. It bit loosened up. I pulled the collett out and there was a lot if sawdust packed around it. There was also a lot of sawdust packed into the collett recess on the router shaft. Been cleaning those before starting each project and haven’t had a problem since.
