Build and Intro

[swisscheese]

I'm having some problems with the limit switches. I'm using LinuxCNC. For each axis they are wired in series and are done so when a limit is hit the circuit is broken(normally closed?). Anyway I've tried every combination and when I start up Linux CNC and press the 'power' button on the screen it straight away comes up with limit reached. I have inversed it in the stepcon. Same thing happens. I then put a little bit of wire in one of the x limit terminals and then just looped it straight back to the second x limit terminal and this fixed the problem, however obviously having it set up like this is no use. It's almost like the long wire and 2 switched delay the return signal so it thinks a limit has been reached. Another thing, it works fine if I set it to E-stop. Anyone had anything similar to this?

I'm also having a fair bit of trouble with my pulleys on the x axis(largest axis on my build). The set screws seem to keep coming loose. I thread locked them but this didn't help. Kind of made it worse. They loosened and then when I went to undo them they were jammed, ended up having to drill them out!! :(
I think I'll have to give the alloy pulleys the boot and get some steel pulleys. I just don't think they're up to the task, especially with only 8mm D shaft and only 15mm long when the pulley is 28mm wide.

I also want to put less stress on the machine overall, I had it set at about 800mm/s^2 for accel. I think I might drop this back a bit? Also will probably drop the max velocity back a bit also. It can do 11m/min just on the x axis but have it set at about 7m/min now(pulleys came loose at this speed) but think I'll drop it down again to about 5m/min. Acceleration would be the killer though with respect to forces experienced by all the componants.