Axidraw V3 – pen up/down going bananas

[mike]

I’ve been using my Axidraw V3 for about a month. Rhino to SVG workflow. About 10-12 small postcard size drawings using a ball point pen, around 4,000 to 10,000 vectors per drawing. No major issues, until today.

When I attempted to set pen down the pen holder started going crazy, jerking up and down, over and over. It stops after I unplug for a while, but then happens again.

Any ideas what’s wrong, how to fix?

Unrelated- is there anyway to preserve layers exporting to svg out of Rhino?

Thanks-

[Windell Oskay]

It sounds like your pen-lift motor is failing. The only “expendable” component of the AxiDraw is the small, blue pen-lift servo motor. They do wear out over time but are inexpensive and straightforward to replace. For heavy duty applications — and this, with many thousands of segments qualifies — you may wish to keep a spare on hand. You can find them here:
https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/903

You’ll need a small phillips screwdriver for the replacement.

There are some additional factors that can lead to the motor failing prematurely: For example, if you’re adding extra weight or pressure to the Z-stage, or if the pen lift stage does not slide freely up and down for other reasons, so check to see what the situation is.

On Rhino: We don’t have experience with it — you might look at what the SVG of the export document looks like.

[mike]

That’s good news- thanks! I’ll stock up now.

[Author]

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