Getting the ShopBot up and running

[mikejohn]

I've moved away from this thread, as the table and ShopBot are levelled (for now!).
I did say in that earlier thread I would remark on the Manual, but it has since occured to me that, as my 'Bot is a Hybrid Alpha/PRT96, there is nothing useful in pointing out the problems, as they will apply to no one else.
One thing I will say. If you have problems, read the manual, most of it is in there somewhere. Like all modern technology, it's finding that somewhere which is difficult.
One thing I did experience problems with was following the Assembly Manual section through to the section on 'Taking her out for a trial run...' without reading the rest of the manual, or rather the Quick start Tutorials, and parts of Users Guide, The Big Picture.
Connecting was a problem, solved so far only by using me 'biggy' Windows XP 2gyg + computer.
My smaller, older Pentium II will not connect....yet!
So the first command I tried, as per the manual, was (MZ)-1 no problem.
My second test (MY)3 or (MY)75 in my millimeter case sent the Y carriage crashing into its stops!
And before you ask yes I was in mm not inches.
Then I couldnt persuade the Shopbot Y back beyond the middle of the carriage.
Using (K) and the arrows to move around, it sounded like a sewing machine, any move commands sounded like an automatic car driver using a shift stick for the first time. Tried the settings on page 5 of calibrating the shopbot PRT, it did not like that! Tried the settings on page 117 of the user guide. Returned to the same problems. (Z2) 0,0 then use the arrows to move x away from zero, the measured distance of 1910mm instead of the 300mm indicated, (JX) 0 and it only came back halfway.
At that point I stopped, brought the computer home, and found something had eaten the BIOS and network card (co-incidental they said in the repair shop, nothing to do with operating the ShopBot software).
Back again today I found I could reset (UR)to all the 'original' settings.
Did this and cured the problems.
Then, still without a router bracket, I taped on a pencil and drew a circle

Now Brady said something in the other thread to the effect 'stop fussing and start cutting'. It aint that easy when doing it the first time. I understand experienced ShopBotters getting frustrated and bored by newbies showing there ignorance. Maybe there should be a thread for newby problems alone, then if your not inclined to get involved in basic stuff you can ignore those posts. As for me, I will always be sympathetic to the tenderfoots.
Now to solve the 'old' computer connection problem
............Mike

[bleeth]

Mike: Congratulations on your first project!! (a circle). We will let that qualify as "starting cutting". Ten minutes after I had my router buzzing I ran the shop-bot logo sample and then did a quick name of my company. Then I slammed together a couple of vector drawings from the vector-art disc and cut them with a v-bit. At this point my table was not surfaced, I hadn't "trammelled" my spindle, and had no dust system working either. But by gosh I just HAD to see how my new toy ran. It was quite a while till I had every thing as square and level and flat as I wanted but that little intro cutting gave such a sense of relief that I'm still very glad that I skipped ahead and cut something. The thing is that there are some of the items that you will be tweaking once you get operating for quite a while and I think Brady's and my point was akin to making sure you are seeing the forest as a whole while caring for the trees. Next week I expect to see a picture of your machine cutting a horse!! LOL

Dave

[mikejohn]

Dave
Thanks for the kind remarks.
Don't misunderstand me. I appreciate everybody who bothers to reply to any questions I ask. Mostly I know they are pretty basic. I hate for anyone to be upset by my naive perspective, but I do understand.
regards
Mike

[gerald_d]

Mike, I taught my kids to drive on an old airstrip where there were no obstacles for a long way.


I reckon that the manual should warn you to have the gantries/cars/slides far away from the stops before you are encouraged to take the first baby steps. There were some SB's that took off in the wrong direction, and I can imagine a metric-minded person saying MX,600 to an inch-minded SB......

Wow, you drew a circle! Well, did the ends join up? Was it the right diameter? Was it round (not ellitical)?

[mikejohn]

It was round, the ends joined up and it was the right diameter!
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry

How long does it take before you stop worrying as the 'Bot heads back to 0,0, wondering if it will stop?
I will sleep like a baby tonight (and it's a long time since I was one of those!)
..............Mike

[jsfrost]

Mike,
Congratulations again.
Yours is a better start than mine. Tried to aircut cut my circle under the spoilboard, and hit the stop just as the router nose disappeared.
Onsrud 1 Jim Nill in 20 seconds.

Confidance that it will stop comes quickly, but it's a long while before you can stop admiring the tool at work and do something usefull.

[gerald_d]

This 0,0 position has assumed a legendary magical status as being the bottom left home corner for x,y. But, in reality, we very seldom send the SB home. 0,0 can be defined anywhere on the table and it is rare that it is at the limit of travel of the x,y axes.

Remember that there is a third axis, the z-axis, and nobody talks of sending that "home", or to near the limit of its travel. So why do we only want to send 2 out 3 axes "home"?

Anyway, it only takes a few hours to get the confidence that the SB will go exactly where you tell it to. Irrespective of whether there is a clamp in the way.

[Alan Simpson (Unregistered Guest)]

Gerald has it perfect. Discovering that zero can be anywhere on the table and anywhere on the part gives amazing freedom. We routinely have multiple unrelated projects on our table. Moving zero will become routine.

Alan

[mikejohn]

Dave
I think I know what you mean about admiring the machine. Roxana claims I haven't loooked at her like that in a long time
.

Gerald
Do all of your cutting files start close to 0,0? Do you move your x,y to the desired postion and zero for each cutting set up?

Alan
Similar question to the one I posed to Gerald, do you 'zero' each position of the unrelated projects?

..............Mike

[gerald_d]

In our case, each and every job is re-zeroed. Therefore, your question, "Do all of your cutting files start close to 0,0?" is ambiguous to me. Each job, or file, has a 0,0 but this has no relation to the absolute "home" of the whole table.