I’m having trouble with my machine not wanting to carve

I’m havingtrouble with my machine not wanting to carve. I’ve attached the pattern that I’mtrying to carve and the machine just won’t do it. I install the card, crankdown the head, turn the machine on, go to the project menu and navigate to theproject I want to carve and hit enter. The machine measures the board properlyand then prompts to load the bit. Once the bit is loaded I hit enter and themachine goes through it’s checks for the bit and then again prompts to load thebit. I hit enter and it goes through it’s checks for the bit again and thenagain prompts to load the bit. It will do this as many times as I care to hitenter. Occasionally it will display a prompt saying “bit depth does not match”,and gives the option to either “abort” or “continue”. If I hit “continue” itprompts to load the bit and again goes through all the checks for the bit andthen again prompts to load the bit.
I have triedusing two different cards and it has made no difference. I have triedformatting the card and flashing the memory and reloading the project and itdoes the same thing.

It sounds like the bit plate is not swinging out. The side away from the keyboard. The bit will bob a down to it two or three times in finding bit. It will repeatedly ask for the bit if it doesn't feel it touch that plate. Sometimes a cord from the cover switch will stop the head from going all the way to the right.

Thanks, assoon as I get a chance to check it out I’ll let you know what I find.

Does the bit plate snap out and does the bit touch near the center of the bit plate. I net, find out why. Usual problem, reach in the back corner over the cut motor and make sure the wires from the top are tucked way back in the corner. Also,one time I had the screws holding the Z encoder in place back out and hit the cover. Could be a loose Y belt. Remove top cover and far end cover. Loosen the screw locking the Y idler/tensioner. Squeez it with your fingers to add tension and lock the screw down.
Clint

Well I can say that I found the problem and the problem is me. Let me explain. The pattern that I posted above was my attempt to fix a previous carving that did not come out right. The two carved areas that are showing in the above pattern had already been carved but the lettering in the carving did not come out good because the wood that I used was too soft. I was attempting to carve the area out using a .375 inch straight bit to simply give me a flat area to glue an insert board into so that I could re-carve without losing the rest of the carvings on the board. I had already attempted once to carve the pattern posted above and the machine had started the carve but stalled about halfway through it. I discovered the reason it stalled was because I had forgotten to turn on the dust collector! When I attempted to again carve out the area I neglected to take into account that the machine had already completely carved out the area of the small square. Therefore when I started the machine it went through all its normal checks and when it asked for the bit and began checking for the bit depth it went over to the bit touch plate and the touch plate did swing out but when the machine went back to the other side and checked for the board surface it was over the area of the board that had already been carved out and could not find the surface of the board thereby giving it an error. It wasn’t until I myself got up to the machine to see if the touch plate was coming out and watched the bit try to touch the surface of the board that I realized what the problem was.
In order for me to be able to do any projects I have to have someone else do the physical acts required such as loading the board, cranking down the head, hooking up the dust collector and pushing the buttons. This is very helpful for me but they are not as familiar with the machine as I am and something like this would not seem out of place to them.
Thank you for your help. It wasn’t the problem but it did get me up and looking at the machine and that helped me find what trouble was.

Glad you found the problem. It is good practice to watch the machine go through it's entire initial setup process every time. If you are not familiar with the process, watching it several times will get you familiar. Then, if there is a problem, you can spot it early and take corrective action before possibly ruining lumber.