Good afternoon! I received my very first CNC - Longmill MK2.5 48x30. I built a really nice table and have it installed, squared up and as level as it can be. I’ve run some break in code and all seemed to be fine. I made a few small projects and they turned out neat. I decided to make my daughter a serving tray for her new custom cookie business and have ruined a good handful of material due to this “binding” issue I’m experiencing.
Once I start a job, most of it works just fine. Then it’ll “bind” and the whole job is thrown off.
I’ve lubricated and jogged to break in (suggestion from Sienci support), checked the gantry wheels, loosened and tightened the anti backlash bolts, wished upon a star, even stood in my undies and did a little dance with a tin foil hat to try and get this thing to work right. I’m about ready to pull it off the table and throw it in the pool! Then I realize, I’m new to this and I’m sure I’m overlooking something.
I tried attaching videos to this post but can’t. I’ve uploaded the videos of the “binding” to my Google drive and will share links here - caution, there may be language that could be offensive to some, watch at your own risk as I have filter issues. Let me know if there are issues viewing the videos.
Any ideas from this forum are greatly appreciated as I plan to change the world with my CNC skills that I plan to learn and use only for the good of mankind!
There are a few topics already on the forum, Welcome by the way, that seem to address this same issue. I’ll link a few with a solid solution or with tips from users and sienci smarties that might help. Maybe you can find your eureka in one of these.
It seems a lot of solutions focus on speed settings. G-sender lets you play arounbd with those and to be frank, watching your vids, That axis is a flying (compared to what my old LB powered LM does.)
Since it seems that your axis is stalling mainly when starting, try the X-axis acceleration settings first?
Thank you on the comment… my first table was a little POS and was put together quickly as I was so excited to get my machine working. I thought the issue that I was experiencing was due to the quick set up so I built this tank. No thing changed. I have tightened the coupler a number of times, even broke the fancy allen wrench that came with the Longmill. That sucker is TIGHT! I will check it again tho… thx for the suggestion!
Thx for the links, Eddie. I should have clarified in my original post, I did scour the forums and did find a good handful of these topics. I also made some adjustments to the g-sender acceleration settings… maybe they need more tweaking. I’m not 100% convinced that the acceleration is the culprit tho. If you notice in one of the vids that the machine is in the middle of a cut on the outline and then stalls and starts coming down… ruined that material and project and put a cramp in that day. Thank goodness I had a fridge full of beer to lean on!
I will make some additional adjustments and see if I can negate the stall. GRRR!! It’s so irritating. I did start running through a project first to see if the stall is going to happen without a bit in and sure enough, when it got to the x&y travel… it screamed at me at the stall. It’s the craziest thing.
Thx for the table comment… I’m ready to get it dusty. I built it so I can crank out some wonderful and awesome projects… BRING THE DUST ON!
Hi @gwilki, I did open up a support ticket with Sienci. They were quick to respond and that was nice. Their suggestion was to lube the lead screw with WD-40 and perform a break in on it. I did so and it’s still acting like a stubborn teenager.
I’m going to make a few changes to the g-sender as @Spamming_Eddie suggested. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to play with it until tonight… gotta do this adulting thing that always tends to get in the way of fun stuff.
Thx for the suggestion… I do need to respond to them that the issue is still not resolved so thank you for that reminder.
@Shig You’re welcome, Sean. That’s what we are all here for. I don’t have the new and improved anti-backlash nuts. I’ve read many posts about installing them and breaking them in. One thing that seems to be common to many of those posts (and you may well have seen this) is that some users do not get them lined up perfectly with the lead screws and they overtighten them.
You will read advice from Sienci about loosening them a wee bit, moving the gantry to it’s left most position, then just snugging them up just enough to close the lock washer and no more. They likely don’t seem tight enough at that point. Accept it anyway. If that resolves the binding problem, good stuff.
The only indication that they may be too loose is if your projects indicate that backlash is a problem. If your projects look good and things don’t bind, you are golden. The fact that you or I may think that the mounting bolts are too loose is irrelevant.
My stall seems to have occurred due to a quick computer disconnect. Nothing would move. I had to reconnect the computer and everything would move. I noticed your computer on the table, mine bounced ever so slightly causing the usb to wiggle loose and required a reconnect. I have never been able to restart the project where it stopped and this caused other issues……welcome to cnc😅
Thank you, @JAC! My project continues and I had to hit the “Oh shit” button to stop it. Well, I guess I didn’t have too but my eject button in my truck stopped working so hitting the CNC emergency button made me feel good!
I’ll keep that loosey goosey usb in mind tho, I did notice that it’s sure easy to push in and take out. Sure would suck to have it come out during a project that I’ve got some investment in.
Did you get it figured out. Mine was doing the same thing as video 2 and I slowed down the settings in SLB config to what has been posted here in the SLB forum and it cured my issues completely.
As I am reading this post about binding and you having the speed settings at 4000-4500, I can’t help but think that that is too fast, roughly 160 inches a minute. I never run that fast. I stay around 100-125 inches a minute with the new SLB. I never have had any issues at that speed…
Big developments here… my wife and I were beating this sucker up last night and she kept telling me that she thinks it’s software based. In my head I was thinking, “What the hell does she know?!”. My response was, “Yes, dear, I’ll check the settings.”
Well, what I did was check vCarve and noticed that the design file had about as many nodes on it as the total national debt. It was insane! I worked some magic and made them all bezier nodes which gave me about 8 nodes as versus the mass amount there was before. Sure enough, that profile cut like a charm! I was so stinkin’ happy. Grabbed a beer and watched it make my pretty table all dusty.
Then, I let it sit over night. This morning I set up to cut a the same project and sure enough, “VRREEEM” as it did it’s little bind dance and started cutting in the wrong spot. 6am and I’m ready to hit the friggin whiskey!
I jogged around a little and, sometimes it happened, other times it was happy. WTactualFlippin Hell??!!! I performed some additional adjustments to the screws for the backlash whatchamacallit and it started off like it was just fine. Do I need to adjust this damn thing every time I take a break to grab cold one or let it sit over night because I need beauty sleep?! That would be a real pain in the taco spitter!
Anyhow, seems to be ok but I’ve got PTSD every time I start a project thinking that crackhead sound is going to come back (the bind) and my project is going to fail - ruining, yet, another piece of material. This shtuff is not cheap, I tell ya!
Anyhow, I like what @mike2 is saying, maybe my speed settings have it going too fast (adderall speed) and I need to slow it down to standard grandpa speed? Seems a bit anti-climatic as I like to watch it cruise as versus chug along like it was the one drinking and not me.
Anyhow, seems a little better but still not 100% fixed. Throwing it in the pool and watching the bubles stop is still on my mind.
The 3067 and 3057 videos are exactly what I was dealing with.
For me, moving the XZ gantry all the way to the left, loosening the antibacklash nut, then barely tightening it back up has seemed to resolve the issue. Reseating it when aligned full left seemed to be the magic trick.
Good luck. That noise of it binding is forever stuck in my head and still makes me angry when I hear it.
I had a similar issue and response from tech support. I applied all of the “fixes”. Still had issues. It would work sometimes and then not. What I ended up doing is going back to the lead screws and the Acme clamping nuts (not the couplers) and loosened them, backed off the Acme clamping nut (the instructions are, “While holding this tension in place, firmly tighten the set screw on the ACME nut. This makes another ‘bolted sandwich’ where everything should be touching bearings (as pictured) and the lead screw should only be allowed to rotate, and not move in-and-out.”). What I discovered is that if you are overzealous or just a brute you can overtighten the Acme Nut against the bearings and cause the lead screw to bind (pinched between the coupler and the Acme nut). So anyways, I just backed off the Acme nut until there was a gap and then retightened the Acme nut while holding the lead screw from moving and snugged the Acme nut to up against the bearing (I did not over tighten it or bind it, it just needs to be snug to prevent lateral movement
). Verified that there was no lateral play and then tightened up the socket screw. I have had no issues since.
@rjogdon, great info! I will give this a try. I know, when I first put it together, I “butted” that ACME clamp. I did end up loosening it this last time I took the whole gantry apart. I will check again for sure, doesn’t hurt to try!
It’s been behaving pretty well lately. Even test carved some clamps and guitar bodies getting my feet wet to produce some bodies for my lead guitarists guitar biz.
I appreciate the response and will let y’all know.
Glad I was not the Only one. I had the same thing happen, and here is what I discovered. I needed to ensure the sled holding the router was firmly fixed to the gantry. I had a little slop in the sled and that seemed to be causing me the problem. I did all the other stuff you did before I found this. Ensure all the screws are tight and there is no slop in the sled either way.
New user here, first post. I think its great youve actually been able to make something at least once before you get that gawdawful squall. Mine, not so lucky., I read and watched an encyclopedia worth of info trying to fix mine before coming here and joining the forum to find an answer. Mine randomly squalls in rapid jog. I discovered this during assembly, and NO amount of adjustment has helped. Tried WD-40 no good, tried 3-in-1 no good, then tried molybdenum powder…no change. Had the delrin V-wheels tight enough to turn a penny into copper wire, had em so loose they werent touching, no help either way. I used to be a machinist and DO have all those wonderful measuring tools and my rigs within 0.010 of square. Acme nut both tight and with 0.015 play, no joy. Anti-backlash nuts sloppy loose, snug just to close the washer, tight as all heck, no change. Changed the acceleration rate, no change. And before you ask, it’s not the CAD/CAM software, I havent been able to stop the squalling long enough to install any. I have whatever the newest version gsender as of 8/24/24.
Aaaaaaaand then while trying to figure this bug out today, gsender suddenly just starts closing itself for no reason AND while trying random small surfacing movements with the software trying to figure out where the squallings coming from…the software just randomly sayts its lost connection with the machine and the software stops but the surfacing job just keeps going until its done and then just sits there since it doesnt seem to know where home/zero is anymore.
I’ll keep reading and trying y’alls fixes before opening a ticket since all they’re gonna tell me is what many of you have probably already put in a few of these posts, but after buying a completely perfect ready-out-of-the-box BambuLabs X1 Carbon and being spoiled with utter trouble free performance…so far, I’m hugely disappointed in what I got for my $1600 30X48 MK2.5 with Vortex
New user as well and this will be my first post. I ran into the same issues with my new machine Longmill 48x30 Mk2.5 that everyone has posted. Y/Z axis stopped working, X axis binding, zero axis buttons stopped working. I went back though the installation material, videos jsut to confirm that i assembled the machine correctly and ran through some trouble shooting steps to eliminate the motors, the lead screws and tensioners. Went as far as uninstalling GSender and reinstalling it several times, subsequently I sent trouble tickets to Sienci labs for help as well as calling them. They were able to help me get the XYZ axis to respond correctly.
Still having issues where I will jog the X axis in normal speed and it will bind. I have made several attempts following their directions that they provide along with the videos and still have the same issue. The X axis works fine when in precise speed. Along with this, I ran a test project of letters 2 in height X 15 in wide. When it was carving the letters it didn’t go as planned. The letters were compressed into an approximate 3 in square. I tried another basic test project with circles, squares and a star. Same results. I finally reached out to Sienci Labs and Vectric for assistance and sent them the test files, Gcode and diagnostics. Still waiting to hear back from Sienci Labs, I did hear back from Vectric.
so, I’ve tried everything I could find on the forum as well as in multiple keyword internet searches and none of the solutions worked. Then I decided to try the software side of things. Fresh clean new install of gsender, didnt help. tried all the suggested speed settings one at a time and all together, didnt help. Then I decided to just go for broke…and heres where I get told “theres NO WAY that worked”. I found that in the firmware all the homing settings (dang theres a lot of em for this and that) were on. Knowing they would have nothing to do with WHATEVER is causing the issue I turned em all off. I dont have any of those blue button-tipped switches installed anyway. Aaaaaand now it wont bind REGARDLESS of the jog speed or acceleration speed. Not feeling too confident that the problem wont resurface, but as of right now, nothing I do makes it squall. I even tightened down the anti-backlash nut to what intuition says the tension should be, no binding. Tightened my V-wheels back up to what “should” be normal, no squalling. Any ideas on why this worked other than mystical gremlins???
