Help? M3 with a crazy amount of errors

[S. Ronin McGowan]

Ladies and Gents, 
I've got an issue that is making my recently built M3 almost unusable. It's constantly throwing hard limit alarms, even when idle and not pressing a limit switch. I have the full upgrade packages, structural reinforcement, limit switches, and the covered MDF instead of raw (plus anything I forgot). I do have a couple of history items to point out before I completely blame the machine itself. 

1. Z Axis limit switch wires got caught and were torn loose. I spliced in a new wire and used a new spade connector for both ends, reconnecting in same place on the switch
2. Y Axis limit switch bar sometimes gets "around" the screw on the Z plate, but the errors from that are manageable

Now, on to the issue(s). I get hard limit errors at various times, and they've been getting worse. I've tried updating UGS Platform (nightly build, currently listed as Apr build), checking my limit switches, checking firmware, resetting firmware via UGS's setup wizard, and tried various setting changes to no avail. It's gotten to where I can't even use the dang machine, and I REALLY would like to finish at least ONE project sometime this month. 

I don't know what else ya'll might want, but here's the output from UGS:

[verbose] <Idle|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Idle|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Idle|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Idle|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Idle|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

An unexpected error was detected: (ALARM:1) Hard limit has been triggered. Machine position is likely lost due to sudden halt. Re-homing is highly recommended.

[MSG:Reset to continue]

Grbl 1.1f ['$' for help]

>>> $$

[MSG:'$H'|'$X' to unlock]

$0 = 10 (Step pulse time, microseconds)

$1 = 255 (Step idle delay, milliseconds)

$2 = 0 (Step pulse invert, mask)

$3 = 0 (Step direction invert, mask)

$4 = 0 (Invert step enable pin, boolean)

$5 = 0 (Invert limit pins, boolean)

$6 = 0 (Invert probe pin, boolean)

$10 = 115 (Status report options, mask)

$11 = 0.010 (Junction deviation, millimeters)

$12 = 0.002 (Arc tolerance, millimeters)

$13 = 0 (Report in inches, boolean)

$20 = 1 (Soft limits enable, boolean)

$21 = 1 (Hard limits enable, boolean)

$22 = 1 (Homing cycle enable, boolean)

$23 = 0 (Homing direction invert, mask)

$24 = 25.000 (Homing locate feed rate, mm/min)

$25 = 1000.000 (Homing search seek rate, mm/min)

$26 = 44 (Homing switch debounce delay, milliseconds)

$27 = 4.000 (Homing switch pull-off distance, millimeters)

$30 = 1 (Maximum spindle speed, RPM)

$31 = 0 (Minimum spindle speed, RPM)

$32 = 0 (Laser-mode enable, boolean)

$100 = 40.000 (X-axis travel resolution, step/mm)

$101 = 40.000 (Y-axis travel resolution, step/mm)

$102 = 80.000 (Z-axis travel resolution, step/mm)

$110 = 8000.000 (X-axis maximum rate, mm/min)

$111 = 8000.000 (Y-axis maximum rate, mm/min)

$112 = 3000.000 (Z-axis maximum rate, mm/min)

$120 = 250.000 (X-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2)

$121 = 250.000 (Y-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2)

$122 = 250.000 (Z-axis acceleration, mm/sec^2)

$130 = 252.000 (X-axis maximum travel, millimeters)

$131 = 250.000 (Y-axis maximum travel, millimeters)

$132 = 62.000 (Z-axis maximum travel, millimeters)

ok

>>> $G

[verbose] GrblFeedbackMessage{message='[GC:G0 G54 G17 G21 G90 G94 M5 M9 T0 F0]', distanceMode='G90', units='G21'}

[GC:G0 G54 G17 G21 G90 G94 M5 M9 T0 F0]

ok

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0|WCO:-4.000,-4.000,-4.000>

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0|Ov:100,100,100>

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

[verbose] <Alarm|MPos:-4.200,-4.000,-4.000|Bf:15,128|F:0>

>>> $X

[MSG:Caution: Unlocked]

ok

An unexpected error was detected: (ALARM:1) Hard limit has been triggered. Machine position is likely lost due to sudden halt. Re-homing is highly recommended.

[MSG:Reset to continue]

Any thoughts? I'll gladly give more info if needed, and will try just about anything to get this working.

Cheers,
S McGowan

[kevin]

Your settings show hard limits ($21) and soft limits ($20) enabled. Disable them by setting them to $21=0 and $20=0.

Also what program are you using for your CAD/CAM?

[S. Ronin McGowan]

Kevin, thanks for the reply. I'm using Easel a little bit as well as Inkscape while I get a better hang of Fusion360, although it's been pretty straightforward. I'll disable the hard and soft limits, thanks for the heads up. I'm still puzzled by the random alarms though.

I do have an additional piece of info to offer that I just remembered. The mill suddenly crashes the router down as if the USB was disconnected, at random times. It might not be random and I'll keep verbose logging on for now to check into that.

More later after some tests, thanks again Kevin!

[kevin]

I suspected you probably didn't change the limit settings yourself and figured you may have connected your machine to Easel which resets the default settings and will give you errors. When using Easel, I'd recommend not connecting your machine to it but rather save the g-code to your computer, then access the g-code from the file you saved it in and run it with UGS.

[S. Ronin McGowan]

Roger that, thanks again! I've reset those settings and so far so good. After the lady wakes up I'll put the M3 through a couple runs

[S. Ronin McGowan]

Well, it looks like the M3 is happy again, which of course made my day yesterday! Now I'm off to finally get some of the stuff out of the way like making some clamps and some other workbench type items.

Anyone have suggestions or links?

[Derek the Admin]

I'm glad to hear it. There is a wedge clamp file on the resources page at the bottom.