Exorcism for my CW machine

[Scott J. Zeiger]

So I have been a having a bit of a problem with my CW being very finicky, but as of right now, it is in the middle of carving a 10" long project, which it did fine for about half of it but now it carves one pass, raises the bit and just runs, 5 minutes or so goes by, makes a pass, rinse and repeat. Anyone else ever have this problem?

[fwharris]

Yes a bit strange! Does the board make any movement while it is sitting there air carving? It sounds like it is sitting there thinking about what to do next.

Anything special in your project or is it just a simple pattern carve. Post the project for an examination.

[Foggycarver]

I have had this happen to me also. I am not sure I can help but what solved it for me was to change my tool path. My project had extra tool paths i didn't see overlaying. I think in my case it just confused the carver. I basically could stop the machine when it went nuts and restart and it would still do it. The only thing fixed it for me was to basically delete my tool paths and start over and then upload the file to the card. I have had two projects now that that has happened to me. Both ended up being tool path related. Basically i was using a 3/8" bit in a circular tool path to hallow out calls. I'm not sure if that helps you or not but yes it is very strange when you see it happen.

[bergerud]

This the behavior of the machine when the brass roller does not move. When the x drive moves the belts forward to the next pass position, the computer waits for confirmation from the brass roller that the board has incremented as well. If there is no brass roller confirmation, the truck just sits and waits with the motor spinning.

My guess would be that the belts are slipping under the board. Do you have tape on the underside of board for belt traction? Is the head pressure low? Next time it happens, push on the board.

[Scott J. Zeiger]

I like the term "air carving". So of course I stopped it and awaited for what I knew would be helpful advice from the group. Examination revealed that a small piece of wood from the carving had jambed up the feed rollers, doing just what bergerud posted as to not allowing the board to ove thus the brass roller.
The additional good news is I learned from the group before this happened about how to use the "jog to position" feature, which allowed me to remove the board, clear the obstruction, re-position the board and away we went.

Thanks for the help guys.