Hi @Alex Chambers - no problems... my efforts today!!! need to work on bit sizes and paths... tomorrow I need to sort out the spoiler board.. B&Q tomorrow. 1 happy son tomorrow I think.
I use a B&Q Depot near me in Poole. They are quite happy to cut stuff to size, so I'll get an 8 x 4 and get 3 or 4 spoiler boards for the future. Plus they will fit in the car, save hooking up the trailer.
I made mine the good old fashioned way... let me know how you get on if your machining yours Got B&Q to cut me 2 out of a 2440 x1220 x18mm circa £20 and I have offcuts for practice and other projects.
B&Q's saws usually have a fine kerf, so I expect to get three boards 1220x810 out of a full board. I intend to leave them the full 4' as I want the excess to overhang the Y axis and provide a cover for my power supply. Alex.
Evening Chaps!!! so this weekends effort.... I have installed the waste board, I went for 18mm ply, MDF dust and lungs and general health, yuk. Those slot in T nuts are a pain in the A** getting everything lined. up. I ran a manual pass to see how far out the waste board is: now I need to create a CAM program to automate the task
Hi @Colin Hart, you could programme a pocket to take off the whole of the machinable area or, if you are lazy like me, you could just jog the machine backwards and forwards. Alex.
Evening All. So I thought I would try NOT to be lazy - and program the CNC to face off the spoiler board. Having a few limit issues. The Model is basically facing 1mm of a rectangle made fusion. The sizes are well within the limits of the machine. I have a screenshot of hte message - Line 26 is the offending line. For reference Fusion shots are: Milling overview - The Zeo Zero point is set to the opposite corner from the home position of the machine. Can anyone a rather frustrated, grump, garage hermit like me??? A boring video of the failure - not sure it will help. It starts from Work 0,0
Not a direct answer, but I just did this yesterday. Get rid of all the circular direction changes by going into your facing op, passes tab and change your transition type from Smooth to Straightline. That will serve two purposes. 1 - It will keep your bit from going beyond the limits to make its transitions. 2 - If your board is bigger than your cutting area, you wont get scalloped edges.
You might have been better with a pocket toolpath. Your toolpath shot shows the tool going outside your workpiece at the end of each horizontal pass - hence the X-1 which is outside the soft limits of your machine. Hopefully someone like @sharmstr will chip in with a proper answer. Alex.
You did, but I was responding on my phone and it took me longer to type my message than it took you to respond. Alex
@sharmsr - You are a genius, a God of Fusion. So it worked, however, the drag chain snagged on the Z axis limit switch and snapped the cable. Cable soldered back together, insulated, and drag chain offset by 1 nut. a quick test and yay all working again. Annoyingly its too late to face the spoiler board tonight, looks like it will be tomorrow evenings project. Thanks Alex as well..
So in simple speak.... ITS WORKING!!!!!!! thank you all to have shared the knowledge and experience. F.Y.I I am seeing about 1mm drift across the X- Axis - too early to say what the Y is as its still milling away.
Hey Colin. Did you calibrate your steps? Small errors will make themselves clearer over distance. I cant remember if you're using OB Control or not, but there's a handy fine adjustment utility in the grbl tab.
@sharmatr - Good point... the short answer is no. I'm using the Duet Controller. Is there a guide on doing this?
Oh. Right. Sorry, hard to keep track of who's got what where. Check this out. Also, take note of all your values unless the duet web app thingy has a backup facility. Will save you from having to do all this again. Edit: A quick google search of 'duet calculate steps' brought back some interesting things. Perhaps there's a way to do it like the OB Control does
Ahh this makes sense, thank you for this... this is one for the weekend I think. Is there a guide to where to make the adjustments on the workbee?
Depends on the controller, right? They only controller I've ever used on this hobby machines is the OB Control. #10 here is what I use. Saves a ton of time, but you have the duet so guessing you can't use it. But should give you an idea of what you're looking for: Things you didn't Know about OpenBuilds Software However, its really not that hard with a calculator in hand
I can't find anything on the Duet website that would help with this - I have been wondering about this myself and would be really interested to know how to do this with the Duet. Alex.
I have messaged @Ryan Lock to ask him if he knows of any guidance on how to do this - will post his reply here when I receive it. Alex.
Not for sure yet - some objective tests needed before fiddling with steps/mm settings. Some things I make are fine at +/- 0.5mm (most woodwork) others (chassis for model locomotive) 0.05 would be good (yes I know that is stretching my machine's capability). Some things have been coming out a little bit small, but whether that's step size (error would be cumulative) or the inherent limitations of the machine I am not yet sure. Alex. Also I have mostly been working with wood based materials (eg mdf) and it is important to remember that they can change size and shape as you machine them. I need to do some tests using materials less affected by temperature and humidity.
this will also depend on which way round you cut. if you do a conventional cut, going anticlockwise around the part, it will be small. if you do a climb cut, going clockwise around the part, it will be large. by how much? by the amount of flex in the system related to bit size, feed rate, material hardness, construction, axis lengths etc. this can be minimized by doing a cut with 'radial stock to leave' and then doing a finishing cut to remove that last little bit. Here is a resource for calibrating HOWTO Calibrate your CNC Machine for MACH3 or GRBL
