So i just got the Atmill back together connected to Grbl Hall, created my V carve pro 3d carve as i did in past. Used a USB drive to copy and the take to the G sender computer by Sienci as i open it and tried on all the roughing, finishing as well as profile. Lines up outside the material limits as shown in the picture. What am i doing wrong? It was created fine on V carve. In fact the 2nd project unrelated did the same thing. Must be a setting.
The alarm says soft limit exceeded so either the settings for gsender xyz soft limits are too small or the project is too bigā¦ most likely the former.
Hereās a forum post that talked about it briefly, the user found their answer in the troubleshooting guide!
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Hi Nick,
Often when visualizer is not correct, something is wrong with the post processor used in the cad software.
Here is a part of the manual covering the altmill a d the needed post processor to function correctly. (Scroll down for settings in vectric.)
It might be helpfull.
I see you work in inches so Iām wondering if maybe itās a unit problem. If the machine is trying to move 25.4 times as far as it should it will run out room real fast.
I use millimeters everywhere so Iām not sure of the settings but I know that you can work in inches in VCarve then post process with millimeters and still see inches in gSender. I know some people work that way because you can have accuracy problems when you post process in inches.
Make sure that you didnāt turn $13 āReport in inchesā on in the firmware settings, pretty sure you never need that on.
Also make sure that the machine size is set right in the firmware, $130 - $132. That size needs to be in millimeters.
@Nbase1 I have deleted your duplicate post. There is no need to post in two categories.
Hey Michael thanks for the info. Just reporting back. $13 is off as you stated and $130-$132 are listed in millimeters. I checked my post processor and made sure i resaved in Grbl āmmā. Still the same. Not lining up correctly. Not sure if i should reinstall g sender.
Iām not clear on what this statement means. I put my gSender in inch mode and one square on the grid is 1". I counted 23 squares for the X axis and 11 for the Y axis in your picture. I also see that your machine and workspace coordinates are the same for the two axes shown. So Iām assuming that you just homed and the project is 23"x11" so it should fit.
Oh wait I think I might have figured it out! It looks like the front of the carve is right on the front edge of the machine. Iām thinking the blue in front of the X axis only appears in front because itās below with the grid on the top of the carve. If your XY zero is set to the bottom left corner of the machine the bit is probably running out of room at the front of the machine. After homing the machine try jogging away from the edges and setting XY zero there and see if it fits then.
I hope thatās it!
EDIT: Silly Michael! The dimensions of the project are in the picture, I sure took the long way to finding them out. I still think the problem could be that the XY zero is the same in work and machine coordinates.
EDIT2: Itās the Z axis thatās the problem. I was looking at the X and Y and they go to zero but not beyond but the Z axis is set to zero at the top of itās range and it needs to go between -1.348" and 0.8" and it canāt go above 0". I gotta say I feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes on this one! 
Be aware that the XY might not be the problem on this carve but they might be on the profile cut because the bit needs to be outside the cross by half the diameter if cut outside the cross.
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Thanks for the response, It looks like all settings are correct, what happens now and it may be related that no matter where i am on g sender and trying to set XY zero the button does not respond and it doesnāt allow me to set the zero nor does it let me set the Z either manually nor with the auto Zero touchplate. It seems all may be related. The button is grayed out on both. Very odd.
It seems we have problems under problems.
I just noticed that the location area in gSender in your pic looks too big for the area itās in. The āGo toā and āZero Xā should not overlap the āLocationā heading. So maybe itās worth a shot to reinstall gSender.
I would try a clean install of gSender. Check out this post I made awhile back where I go over some files and folders to rename to get a clean install on Windows. If your on Mac or Linux hopefully you know where to find the equivalent files and folders.
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Hello again, so i did a reinstall and the same occurs. I tried deleting everything in the files and starting clean.
I initially had issues homing but it reset. I didnāt load a new 3d carve because i have material on the bed and tried to zero and it wont let me zero anything.
I cant even use the auto zero touchplate because it indicates waiting on connectivity but nothing occurs. Spindle turns on and off i donāt know if there are any other settings left. I am on COm3 Grb hall as you can see in photo. Should i reach out to Sienci directly.
Yeah, I think it might be time to get help from the proās. Hereās the link if you need it.
EDIT: The only thing I can think to try, and this is grasping at straws, would be to download a fresh copy of gSender from GitHub and do a clean install with that. I donāt have high hopes but itās the weekend so Iām guessing you wonāt get an immediate response from Sienci so why not try. This would be just in case your previous download got corrupted some how.
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I will give it a try, have nothing to lose. Thanks again for your effort.
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Iām following this in the interest of education. From what I can see, there is nothing in gcode files that indicates the size of the material. So, I would assume that gSender cannot know the size of the material either.
So, why the assumption that the carve is lining up outside the material limits?
To demonstrate my point, I am attaching two identical gcode files. Each of them runs a profile pass around a 5" square. One is running on a 12" square piece of material. The other on an 8" square of material.
Iām not trying to argue the posts. Iām merely trying to learn why it seems that everyone is going on the assumption that the cross is not lined up on some material.
What am I missing here?
8 inch material.gcode (263 Bytes)
12 inch material.gcode (263 Bytes)
I ran into something similar. I had somehow checked offset in vcarve setup menu. Took me darn near an hour to figure that one out too. 
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Point taken but i initially input the size of the project as i have done in the past and then copy to USB drive and transfer from the C Control computer and open g sender and load each tool path. Why is it not allowing me to zero on my material surface and greying out as indicated on the picture Makes no sense.
@Nbase1 Iām not sure if this was addressed to me. Iāll reply, but then others can also.
I didnāt mean to say that you cannot input the size of material in VCarve. In fact, you have to. I was only saying that the size of the material is not part of the gcode. So, it is not part of what gSender sees.
I canāt see the greying out that you are talking about. When you say āit is not allowing you to zero on the materil surfaceā, what is āitā. If you mean gSender, how are you trying to set Z0?
Hey Jason, thanks for the response. I got it to work and start carving, then 2 minutes in my z went idle after a small gouge and just started going back and forth without any movement up or down. See video and photos with the 2 alarms. Before all this it use to do the same. Any ideas as to why all loos good, no movement on the endmil, or loose screws. I checked everything. The gcode looks ok as well.
https://apis.mail.aol.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-OiNdP0KvuMxGEVTTjwXX1-P5PTaUJdrl5v6gN3M6aaoSuH8k2XDlFXLI-Hm2Q6edTJVJXmOu9vG5vVhaOWavzw/messages/@.id==AApXoqwIkTlqZ6qjlAh0ECHPEaQ/content/parts/@.id==2/refresh?appid=AolMailNodin&ymreqid=d41d8cd9-8f00-b204-1c6b-c80000018800
Sorry i meant Grant.
@Nbase1 You would be much better off referring this to Jason. 
I would say that you should open a support ticket with Sienci since no one here seems to be able to resolve this. I see that the error you are getting relates to the pull off setting on your switches, so you may want to try addressing that. I donāt use switches so Iām not competent to advise more on that. The link that you included is some kind of reference page. There is no video that I saw.
This is the first time I have seen that you have gotten alarm 8. I donāt know if youāve been getting it but it means that you have to increase the pull off distance in the firmware, I think itās $27 homing pull-off in mm. Either that or home slower if your homing at a fast feed rate. The pull-off is to get out of the range of the sensor so it reads off. Iām guessing that homing fast might need more pull-off because the machine is traveling some distance while the signal from the sensor is sent to the SLB and the SLB stops the motor.
The homing cycle should travel somewhat fast to the sensor and then back off and go to the sensor at a slower rate. The fast part is so homing doesnāt take all day and the slow second part is for accuracy.
When you get this alarm the machine has not homed properly and it might affect further operations like setting zero.