Carving Air

[mikesmall]

Hi All – I hope you can help me on this. I’m starting to lose faith in (what has become) my $2,000 paperweight. I just got my machine back from the service department. When I try to carve, I get a “Check Cut Motor” error after about 3 minutes of carving. I can “Enter” through and the machine will carve or at least it thinks it is. It is actually carving air about 1/8” above the board and then it carves what little depth is remaining in the actual wood.

Any help would be much appreciated. This machine has spent nearly double the time being repaired as it has carving and I’m really starting to question if its worth it.

Thanks,

Mike

[Dan-Woodman]

What is your carving depth set to in designer?

[JOHNB]

Sounds Like The Usual Bad Z-motor, Lhr Will Send As Many As It Takes Till You Get A Good One. Then You'll Be Loving Life. Stick With It , It'll Be Worth The Hassle. As For C.c.m., Press Enter And Go With It. Within A Month C.c.m. Will Be Gone.

[Sarge]

Double check your stock thickness with the thickness in the designer. The board being 3/4" thick and your design being 7/8" thick will make similar carving problems. If it's evenly making the cut, I'd figure that's the issue.

[mikesmall]

Thanks all for your help. I'm using a caliper and entering the thickness to within 1/100th of an inch so hopefully I have that covered.

I'm just curious... Do they even test these things after making us ship them back and forth and losing them for weeks on end?

[RanUtah]

They had me sent mine in and I was told that it would be tested. They still have it. Kinda makes me nervious now. I told them to run as many projects through it as needed just to make sure everything works.

[JOHNB]

you don't need a "caliper" to measure the thickness . the machine will always find the top of the board on initial set-up before carving. i believe you can have a 2" thick board in designer, and put a 1" thick board in machine, and machine don"t know the difference. keep in mind if you have a carving set for .75 deep, be sure not to use a .5 thick board.

[mikesmall]

Hi John - I was saying that I measure the thickness on each board (with a caliper) and enter that into the board dimensions - in answer to Sarge's question.

[mikesmall]

Thanks Sarge. All things being equal, can i just tell the machine I'm using thinner stock to solve this? I just don't want to do anything that might break a bit if the machine then gets it right.

[liquidguitars]

“Check Cut Motor” error after about 3 minutes of carving.

you will need a new cut motor sent to you , takes a bout 10 min to install.

Any drop in the Z carving will be a bad incoader and will need a new Z pack about 20 min to replace. I think the new Z packs are better qualty than the
OEM's.

LG

[pkunk]

Hi John - I was saying that I measure the thickness on each board (with a caliper) and enter that into the board dimensions - in answer to Sarge's question.
Read JohnB's post. They could eliminate the board thickness setting in Designer. The machine measures each & every board.

[Gman_Ind]

As mentioned the before the Z axis is set on the fly when the machine is 'checking surface" it compensates for design variations from the wood thickness and nuls the bit length. So make sure after you enter what bit your using, you make sure that bit is in the machine when you carve. It will state 'finding surface' on the LCD, make sure it is striking your board in two places, lightly before it carves, if it misses, stop and jog to middle of your board. it then moves about an inch towords the far side and checks again.