Hello there,

I have recently got my machine up and running and im having problems with it bogging down and stalling the steppers.

The problem seems to mainly be on the x axis, though i think i may of missed a few steps on the Y. The X is driven by a 3.1Nm stepper direct drive onto mod 1 rack with 20 tooth pinion, the Y is the same but has 2 motors left and right. I skimmed the bed a few days ago and it seemed to run fine, then i tried cutting some plywood yesterday. The program i ran was quite large and ran for about 2 hours until it obviously bogged down and started to cut where it shouldent of, upon closer inspection it had missed a few steps earlier on in the program.

I made a simpler program today to do each part indivually but it bogged down on the deepest passes on the first part, then it stalled on the next part, i ran the program again and it stalled at the same point (as soon as it had to cut some plywood) i then replaced the cutter and it managed to get through it. I am using 4mm Chinese carbide cutters cutting 12mm birch plywood, 2.2Kw water cooled spindle at 12000 RPM, the passes were 4mm deep with 5mm on the 3rd pass to make sure it cut all the way through. the channels are clogging up as the extraction does not have enough suction to get deep into the channel and there only 4mm, i thought this was the issue and was hoping it would be ok if i switched back to 6mm cutters but then it stalled on a 8mm deep pass that was clean and open as it had a recess next to it.

Im not trying to do hard machining, i used 6mm cutters doing 6mm deep passes with my old machine with a wood router and it cut fine. The new z axis assembly and gantry are heavier than on my old machine, about 55kg now, so i am thinking that running direct with no gearbox may be the issue, but it seems to jog about at 6m/min and not loose steps, (im machine at 2m/min)and it ran the bed skiming program fine, so is it more likely to be down to the cutting?

Im a bit lost with this at the moment so i thought i would put a post up on the forum and see if someone with better understanding could point out whats going wrong.

Many thanks

James