I have a consistent, tho unpredictable problem with my Z axis. It will lose steps, randomly, in either direction, altho it seems to happen most often going down. My Z is a ball screw and it can be turned easily by hand (I have a 3″ knob on the opposite shaft of the motor).
I have isolated the wiring so that nothing touches and the AC cable for my router is far away from stepper cables.
I have bumped the max accel down to 5million. I use very slow feed rates for Z: was using 100, have gone down to 50 with no change.
But here’s an interesting aspect of this problem. If I rest my hand on the knob as it is moving (when it’s just doing a very slow, 2mm change), if I apply slight rotational pressure, I can easily move the knob until it reaches the correct number of position. Then it will “stick” there and hold.
So is there a setting I should adjust? perhaps the trim pot for that axis needs more or less current? I have a beefy 24v power supply. The X & Y axes perform very repeatably and do not lose any steps.
I’m also going to try switching motors (they’re all NEMA23s) to see if perhaps there’s something amiss with the Z motor.
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