Hello,

Hoping someone can help here- Perhaps the Evil Mad Scientists themselves? I’ve been working with the Axidraw v3 extensively for a few weeks, and I’m having an issue which I can’t seem to solve. This issue occurred on my very first plot (first plot with my own file anyway, not your test files), and is still happening regularly.

When drawing certain paths, the Axidraw will suddenly spaz out- the arm will make a jerky movement resulting in a sort of grinding sound, and usually a stray line. When these jerks are severe enough, the belt seems to slip, so the drawing will proceed in the wrong location on the page. Everything drawn after the jerk will be correct, but in the wrong spot. When this happens, I have to disconnect the machine and manually reset to the home corner, but usually the drawing has been ruined.

This happens reliably with certain paths, but I cannot predict which paths will cause this until it happens. Sometimes it happens on a path with an extremely tight loop or curve, and in that case, I can eliminate the loop and it fixes the problem. But other times, there is no obvious culprit, so it is hard to know what exactly to change in order to prevent it from happening the next time I plot. It is becoming a major source of frustration, because I am making complex drawings with dozens of pen-changes, which take several hours, and sometimes this will ruin one right at the end! I am also worried that the grinding/slipping might be physically damaging the machine.

I have tried running the machine at lower speeds (usually I am around 18% speed, but I have lowered to 8 with no results)

Is this a known issue? Are there settings I should try changing? Thanks in advance for your help in diagnosing the issue. Should I email an SVG file to the EMS team that causes the glitch on my machine, and see if you can reproduce it?

C