Okay, so I carved my first rotary litho yesterday, and despite only having it set to .18" deep in the .25" walls of the litho, it actually carved one small hole in a light area, and several other light areas came dangerously close to breaking through. Plus, and more concerning to me, even though I made the carve region 11" wide on the 10.992" width (for a 3.5" diameter pvc pipe), and made sure there was no feather, no floor feather checked, etc, it left a 3/8" or so gap of uncarved pipe - it carved the full width of the image, but it just didn't touch where the seam should have been. Is the software incorrectly judging the flat width of a 3.5" pipe (triple checked the actual outer diameter with my calipers...it is exactly 3.5" at the widest), or was there some slippage in the machine, or...?
That aside, the more pressing issues are taking place NOW, in trying to set up a second carve. Assuming maybe it was slippage of the pipe (I was following Michael Tyler's suggestion of the end caps from Home Depot, and as he and a few others said they were tight enough with nothing sealing them to the pipe, I tried it that way for my first carve...), I drove a 3/4" #6 screw into the pipe and end cap and block of wood inside the cap (between the jig and the 1/2" mark where it will 'part off' the piece...). The pipe rotates freely when spun by hand outside of the machine. It requires a bit of pressure - it can't just free spin, but there is next to no resistance when moving it by hand. Other than that, everything is the same as yesterday's setup.
However, I am unable to calibrate the rotary jig. I thought the screw itself would be an ideal touch point, since it is so visible. But when I am jogging, it will only jog a little distance and then stop. As in, I can no longer jog left or right, back or forth, and I can't even hit enter to start the calibration...it just freezes. I noticed the X belt is moving very slowly at that point, not engaging the jig; but both belts moving the 'board' from right to left (facing the keyboard side) very slowly. I looked at the belts and jig where they should contact, and the jig's belt seems to be touching the X belt in the machine, but the machine is moving and the jig is not. The wheels on the far (non drive) side of the jig are spinning with the machine's belt.
I did this multiple times, and have had this issue every time, sometimes within a second, sometimes within 5-10 seconds of jogging the bit as I start the calibration process. If I stop/cancel the calibration, the X belt continues to move slowly. If I turn off the machine, it briefly flashes an X drive error before the power kills the LCD.
So is this an issue with the jig somehow? Or the machine? Or both? I will be trying some troubleshooting steps here in a moment, just thought I would post for input now, before I get too caught up in that process. Will follow up as (if) I figure out anything more.