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mds2 posted:Does anyone know of a program that will generate surface waves like this: I haven't found a ripple generator like that yet, but I did run across a program called Standing Wave. Doesn't look quite like what you want, but it may be a starting point. Also, I just pulled the trigger on a 1000x1000 X-Carve about 20 minutes ago. Let the anxious waiting begin!
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Mar 24, 2015 20:15
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Ah, thanks for the tip! You prompted me to look over the assembly instructions, and it looks like the waste board just sits on a couple of pieces of 20mm extrusion. That stuff's cheap enough that it might be worth it to buy a couple of extra lengths and make a couple of extra stringers underneath. Gonna be a while before I see the kit anyway, so I've got plenty of time to work stuff like that out. 
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Mar 27, 2015 01:50
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Cool, glad you were able to find something. Guess I'll have to go download it myself and see if it's anything I'll ever use. I don't know if you're still looking for something to spit gcode out from graphics files, but a cursory Google search for "convert (insert format here) to gcode" comes up with a staggering number of utilities. I didn't go any further than that, because I don't have any way to test anything yet. I do know that if you're willing to spend some money, Vectric makes some very highly regarded CNC software for 2.5/3D carving that'll do exactly what you want.
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Mar 27, 2015 20:23
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I own a 1000mm X-Carve and I loving love it. There are a couple of mods the community has come up with that really, really should be incorporated into the base design - namely, stiffening the X-axis and adding some anti-sag support for the Y-axis rails - but overall, it was a no-brainer for me when it came to buying one. I'm also completely unashamed to admit that I've become an Inventables fanboy. I have never seen another company go so far out of its way to correct problems and make sure the customers are happy. The founder/CEO, Zach Kaplan, is also very active on the community forums, and lends a refreshing air of transparency to what's going on with the company for both good and bad things. I don't have any opinions on the Shapeoko 3, since I honestly only gave it a cursory glance when I was shopping, but I haven't regretted my purchase for a single second.
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Sep 21, 2015 22:54
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Randel Candygram posted:YThe only complaint I have is that their forum is ugly garbage for ugly babies.
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Sep 21, 2015 23:57
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I've also had pretty good luck with this web page: http://zero-divide.net/?page=fswizard Not quite as robust as the software packages seem to be, but still beats doing chip load calculations on a napkin.
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Oct 3, 2015 01:37
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sirbeefalot posted:"drillman1" on eBay has a pretty decent selection of end mills, ball mills and such, and for pretty cheap. Always gets to me pretty quickly, too. I'll wholeheartedly second this. If drillman1 has kids, I'm pretty sure I've put at least one of them through college already.
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Nov 26, 2015 13:45
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Speaking from experience - if you have the means to cut your own waste board for the X-Carve...do that. The 1m^2 board is 3/4" MDF, weighs about a ton and a half, and costs just as much to ship as it does to purchase. It's really nice, don't get me wrong, but that's the first thing I would have omitted if I'd been able to accurately DIY one.Cakefool posted:Just out of interest I specced up the 1m version without router, waste board, tools, chain, psu. $773, I don't know what shipping to the uk would be but after filling those voids from eBay and Amazon that's temptingly around £700. https://robosavvy.com/store/x-carve-fully-loaded.html Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Nov 28, 2015 |
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Nov 28, 2015 00:32
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It's $32 for a full sheet of 3/4" MDF at Lowes. Plenty for two full 1m spoil boards, plus some nice big leftovers to break your first dozen router bits off in while you tune the machine. The actual dimensions for the 1m machine's board are 940mm x 998mm. Here's a link to the GrabCAD page for it. There are a few holes that need to be somewhat precise - the slots around the perimeter, and the two counter bored holes on the center line - because they're used to fasten the board to the extrusions underneath and help keep things square. Other than that you can drill it any old way you like to suit your needs. Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Nov 28, 2015 |
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Nov 28, 2015 04:23
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Cakefool posted:50% more before shipping. Ouch. Sorry I mentioned it.
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Nov 28, 2015 21:00
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:So they Mea Culpa'd pretty hard and are overnighting me a 611 and the mounting for the difference between the old spindle price and the new spindle price. Hopefully this will mean sweet sweet cuts this weekend. You're absolutely right about the EMF thing too - when they go bad, they start to leak bad juju into the rest of the system. The most common symptoms are gained or lost steps, and/or the motors twitching when the spindle is running but no commands are being sent through the controller.
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Dec 3, 2015 05:17
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Bad Munki posted:I think the resin or whatever in mdf would have to be worse, and it certainly can't be worse than his eventual goal of brass. It's easy and extra cheap to make too, if a bit time consuming. I sacrificed my small deep fryer for  and made a small batch as a test, came out beautifully. You can use HDPE too - pieces of a Home Depot bucket make for a lovely bright orange end product.
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Dec 4, 2015 22:27
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Ambrose Burnside posted:... my inclination is to roll with MDF for the back and sides and get some plexiglass for the front and use aluminium extrusions for the frame.
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Aug 17, 2016 21:19
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Ambrose, have you used any feed/speed calculation software? I looked at a bunch of commercial packages, and then found FSWizard. Online, free, and has been invaluable for cutting bit preservation. I have a largely unsuitable, extremely high minimum RPM wood router as the spindle for my X-Carve right now, and FSW does a really great job of estimating the right cutting depths and speeds for a given material and cutter. I pretty much only break bits due to straight up operator error these days.
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Sep 1, 2016 00:36
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Anecdotally, I have shielded stepper cables, but both ends are floating. I don't have any interference issues over ~8 foot or so wire runs. This is on a 1000x1000 X-carve with a non-stock Arduino controller that lives in a plastic box.
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May 14, 2017 15:55
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My cheap plastic box has a fan in the lid that's about a half inch above the cheap, certainly non-shielded Chinese drivers. I really doubt you'll to have to worry about nuclear hardening that Gecko, those are really robust little boxes, and they specifically recommend using active cooling for them. Put it all together, see how it runs, and then address any issues that may be present. I'd bet a meager amount that using shielded wires for your steppers is probably going be all the EMI mitigation you'll need.
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May 14, 2017 21:23
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I've had this DIY Hall limit switch post on CNC Zone bookmarked for years. I never did fully incorporate them on my machine, but I built a couple to play with and they did work as advertised. http://www.cnczone.com/forums/open-source-cnc-machine-designs/101878-cnc-forum.html
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Jan 27, 2018 17:23
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NewFatMike posted:Inventables Easel ought to work pretty well! I believe it has DXF support, definitely SVG so worst case scenario you cover it in Inkscape.
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Dec 31, 2022 00:42
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I was genuinely disappointed. All I was trying to do was set up the 3018 to scribe text on some aluminum. The machine itself had been sitting idle at the house almost since I bought it two years ago, so I took it in to work so we could maybe use it to "stamp" some data plates for aircraft parts. If it weren't for the fact that we have a big ol' 4' x 8' CNC router table (whose brand I can never remember) in the sheet metal shop, and conveniently have VCarve to run it, I'd probably have spent an entire day trying to re-learn enough open source programs to just get some stupid words on some stupid metal. I haven't dabbled in any of this for a few years now, and it seems to be frustratingly difficult to do even the most basic of CNC crap without buying software anymore.
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Dec 31, 2022 01:25
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Can confirm that a 3018 or similar machine is actually pretty great for doing small stuff like that. Mine is currently right next to my desk here at work, been doing some tests with engraving aluminum data plates for aircraft parts. Even with just the lovely little V-bits that it came with, I'm getting excellent results. We do also have Vectric's VCarve Pro though, for our big 5' x 10' router table. That makes life an awful lot easier as far as design and gcode generation. Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 12:26
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NewFatMike posted:FWIW I think 2D drawing applications are much harder than 3D, especially art forward ones like Illustrator. I much prefer getting a DXF from my model. I’m usually doing mechanical design, though, so YMMV. Agreed 120%. I've been using Illustrator for a little over 4 years now at work as part of being in charge of our big vinyl printer (author's note: we're an aircraft maintenance facility and I'm an electrical/hydraulics guy. I don't know either.) While I've learned an awful lot in that time, the emphasis is still on the "awful". There's a reason people go to school for this sort of thing.
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Apr 5, 2023 21:35
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honda whisperer posted:What on earth are you doing with it?
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Apr 6, 2023 10:33
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honda whisperer posted:Oh cool. I was terrified it being used as basically manual drafting but inside a computer. I will say, Illustrator has actually turned out to be handy as hell when it's time to do QC on/make changes to wiring diagrams. I can pull the master files right into it almost regardless of the format, draw nice big red notes on whatever needs attention, and then just spit a PDF out to send back to engineering for review. No worries about anyone being able to read my doctor-like handwriting, and it's sped the whole process up quite a bit. I don't really have any hate for the software, I just wish I could get a little formal training on it someday. Slightly more on-thread (but also still aviation related) - The little 3018 that I bought like 3 years ago and never really ended up using at home has found new life in my office as an engraver for aluminum data plates. This has already made my job at least 15% easier since I don't have to deal with getting them done piecemeal by an outside service. Since I shot this video a couple of days ago, I've optimized the rapids a bit and also switched to a set of single-stroke characters that engrave much more quickly and even more legibly. https://imgur.com/a/4BuOqnG
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Apr 7, 2023 22:05
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The results are astonishingly good! You can feel some really tiny burrs (and I still use 'burrs' very loosely) when it's done, but they "file" right off just by rubbing the surface with your finger. The little tags are made of pretty soft aluminum, so even at a meager 0.003" depth of cut I'm probably going just a bit deeper than is really necessary.
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Apr 7, 2023 23:42
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Is anyone familiar with Estlcam? I've got a new CNC router on the way to play with (Sainsmart/Genmitsu 4040-Pro), and I'm trying to find some carving software that doesn't cost a billion dollars to buy or rent monthly. Why is all of this stuff so expensive? I just want to make a stupid little Han in Carbonite or something. I don't remember having this much trouble back when I had the X-Carve... oh, right, that was before Inventables decided that Easel was going to be their cash cow. 
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Mar 28, 2024 23:35
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Well don't I feel foolish. I didn't realize that the free version of Fusion had any CAM functionality at all, genuinely thought that was a paid-only feature. That'll definitely be worth looking at! I really don't mind paying a "fair" price (and I know that's completely subjective) for something decent, but I hate software subscriptions with a passion and I still can't believe that Vectric gets what they do for their programs. I use VCarve at work sometimes, it's really not that great LOL I'll look into MeshCAM as well. I can work around file formats, but STL seems as common in carving as it is in 3D printing. Thanks for the tips!
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Mar 29, 2024 00:10
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I did install Estlcam last night to play with a little bit, and it actually looks like it'll be more than adequate for my current intended purposes. I really won't need much more than "basic" right now while I get the machine set up and learn its quirks and all that. In a true "screw you" from the universe, everything extra I ordered to go with the machine is slated for delivery today. 65mm mount, Makita router, dust shoe, bit set, materials, etc. The machine itself? Monday! 
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Mar 29, 2024 11:49
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