Has anyone tried running Universal GCode Sender with the SLB? It doesn’t look like UGS is set-up for GrblHal (although I haven’t upgraded to most recent UGS version).
I’d heard that at least it was being worked on, I also sent an SLB to Breiler (the main UGS dev) to help him along in getting UGS compatible. If you check out the changelog or new version you might see progress on it?
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Thanks for getting back to me. Took a quick look at the change log for UGS. Nothing obvious there yet. I am just wanting to check if I have streaming problems with GSender. So I tried the job with IOSender using the aggressive streaming mode. But still the same missed steps. So am moving back to looking at mechanical issues. There is a slight bend in the lead screw (4 mm over 700 mm). Is it possible to straighten this? Would a new screw have better tolerance?
I found in a build back from 2020 a note on basic grblHAL support, and assume there’s been more work done on it since then Release v2.0.7 · winder/Universal-G-Code-Sender · GitHub
If you think the issue with your machine is mechanical, then I’d advise another way to check is manual jogging at the machines max speed (just set the jog speed arbitrarily high in gSender) to see if you can get lost movements that way too. This would rule out issues with the sender.
Regarding a bowed lead screw, 4mm over 700 isn’t terrible but it still isn’t ideal. It would be possible to straighten it if you take your time and make small adjustments as you go - but yes a properly done screw should be straighter than that
I see that. i was running 2.0.18 and there didn’t seem to be much documentation on GrblHal. Not a big problem though since I was able to try IOSender which has better reference to GrblHal and to different streaming protocol. I have pretty well ruled out sender issues (hopefully) so am back on Gsender which is much improved in the latest versions. SLB seems to have improved the disconnection issues too.
Have tried jogging up to 8000 mm/min and it doesn’t miss a beat. I guess this is testing motor performance at lower torque versus machine resistance. No obvious problem here. I tried straightening the lead screw and it is much quieter now but still looks a bit wobbly.
Problem occurs at rapid back and forth (x-axis) movement over 3 mm distance. Most of this must be controlled by the acceleration rate since there is not enough room to get up to speed. If I reduce acceleration down to 200-250 mm/s2 it runs ok. Interestingly it does better with 32 microstep than 16. I am currently looking into the inertial forces and acceleration stepping in Grbl.
I have switched to the SLB and behaviour is still the same so I can probably rule out driver issues. I wonder if it could be a motor issue? The loss of steps is always in the same direction.
Any quick ideas of the top of your head?
The only other ideas I could pitch is to check manually turning the lead screw in the area you’re having the issue to see if there’s an uptick in resistance to movement since the way we design the machines it should always be possible to turn the screw by hand throughout the range of motion. If it seems a bit difficult, then consider checking or lubing backlash nuts, etc.
Otherwise, it seems most other potential issues are ruled out. I’d be surprised if it was the stepper motor. If your issues still aren’t fixed then I’d advise switching over to talking to our team over email since they have much more time than me and could call, send video back and forth, etc. to ensure you find the solution to your issue 