Log your experiences assembling and upgrading your X-Carve. We are devoted to making the assembly process as easy as possible, so don’t be shy about giving feedback!
Where is the link to the assembly videos? They seem to have disappeared.
Cris
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My Limit switches are missing two nuts how can I get them mailed to me?
Received my xcarve yesterday evening. After sorting all the parts I realized I don’t have a Delrin nut in my package. Looking further I see there is not the M6 locknut to put on the top of the shaft either. Is it possible to get these parts sent to me?
Where did the instructions go?
The page is very hard to find now. 
Well, I received my 1000mm Xcarve 2.0 Yesterday afternoon. I unboxed the pieces and everything looked ok. After getting into the install, (I think the instructions online need to be polished a bit, some pictures at weird angles, some steps skipped, etc) I noticed several of the labels of bags of screws, nuts, etc were not matching up to the part numbers listed in the instructions, or some were not labeled at all, making me have to guess what some things were. Made things a lot more difficult trying to match up and go forward and backwards to make sure I didn’t miss a step, mix up a step, or will need those parts later on. Well, it’s built… ish. I found the ribbon cables in the Xcontroller to have one end backwards on both of them. I am unsure if that will affect anything, but it makes it tight to have it spun around like that. I also have the ZProbe option, but didn’t see anything in the instructions on what to do with it.
I was a little disappointed in some of the explanations, such as setting the tension of the belts “start tightening down the M5 nylon locking nut until you hear an audible tone when plucking the belt.” Define an audible tone. And the page for the sideboard listed “Assemble frame using the 20mm x 20mm aluminum extrusion, gusset brackets, pre-assembly insertion nuts and M5x8mm button head cap screws.” And that was it. I am still a bit confused on the tuning of the xcontroller, so I’ll have to do some research on that as well.
It may be due to the 12 hours I spent putting this together in the last 24 hours, and am tired… but seems there is some room for a few tweaks to make the experience a little less frustrating for new people like myself that have not dealt with anything like this before.
I do look forward to using it, and the questions I’ve had with customer service have been answered effectively and quickly. So please don’t take this as a slam, but just my experience in building this so far.
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About the Assembly of a X-carve unit 1000mm.
Soon I will get my X-carve unit, since my purchase I have been watching videos and review several topics published in the Forum exchange and discussions. As I been watching and try to learn about the X-carve and different experience users, I am getting more confuse. Indeed, everyone using the X-carve has several experiences however, for a new comer like me which is the best web site or video publisher which will refer to the latest X-carve machine meaning December 6th 2016. Many improvements has been provided by Inventables and now even ready my content list of my purchase, all those improvement or add-on being proposed by actual users, are those included in my machine?? Help me please to understand what I am getting. Thanks folks.
I just want to say how happy I am with my X-Carv. It was shipped over many dates because of back orders.
They did there best to get me the main parts before Christmas. I still have a few parts on back order. I was able to put the unit together and still make some signs. I just cant say again how pleased I am with everything. The X-Carv is simple and easy to work with.
Randy
nice post i really like it
I bought my unit 3 years ago while you were transitioning to a new warehouse. The unit was sent in over 30 packages that took over 2 months to arrive and then to make matters worse, the final parts you kept sending were mislabeled. So I ended up with a 2k paperweight and the worst customer service i have ever experienced in my life. I’m attempting to put this piece of crap together finally now that I have free time and well i still need those final parts though more importantly as i try to go view the assembly video and instructions they are no longer available. So happy many of your customers got their machine right away properly in one package and were able to turn profits quick. While me you bent over backwards and then left on the bleacher like the dirty rag you left on your bathroom floor. How about so damn help to fix this shit of a product you sent me after charging me for an amazing cnc machine i never had the opportunity to use even though i helped contribute to your growth.
Hello everyone,
We just bought our X-carve and received it in 4 separate deliveries.
I wanted to share our experience so far with packaging, assembly instructions and process as well as to ask for helpful tips from you guys. Because it has been a bit frustrating and Xcarve team is unreachable. I hope you guys can provide some tips that will convince us to stick with xcarve because we are almost at the point to return all of this and order a shepeko instead because we are looking to get 2 cnc machines and we do not want to go through this with another xcarve.
1 - We started to unpack everything and started to look for an assembly manual. But none to be found. We then went online and found their assembly page. And ohhh god but their instructions are tricky to follow and definitely could use a rework. But I feel like including a printed manual is a basic must that I don’t quite understand why they wouldn’t include it. Specially since they took the time to include a printed thank you card. Toggling a $2k+ laptop right next to your work area is not ideal. At least a downloadable PDF.
2 - Packaging must be a nightmare for whoever is putting together this order because although most of the little bags are labeled, a lot of the parts that you need for the section you are working on are on completely different packaging. You spend more time looking for the correct bolts, nuts, washers and screws than you do assembling them. And god forbid any one of these little parts roll off your table and get lost because they do not include extras at all. I dropped 1 nut and 1 washer and just can find them, so guess what. I am now short 1 but and 1 washer to finish the assembly. Further more there is a complete bag of screws we never found in any of the packages. Luckily I happen to save nuts and screws from other builds so I was able to salvage and keep going.
3 - The instructions. Holy Jesus, these instructions are just so bad and difficult to coherently follow. We sort of gave up on them and searched on YouTube for people that have uploaded their process for assembly. We have put around 5-6 hours of assembly time into it and still have not finished it. We are at the point of putting together the electrical components. We are almost at the point of repackaging this and return it back to them. But that also seems to be a hell of a process lol.
Please help with any tips. Please tell us that this is the difficult part and that everything else is easier. I wish we would have looked more in depth prior to buying this because we are not happy campers right now. We have a smaller cnc and it took us about 2 hours to setup (including software) and we were carving in 2 hours. We bought this so we could work in larger pieces.
We even looked into buying the Xcarve Pro but with our experience so far, you can believe that they will not be getting 11k from us.
Hi,
Anyone else notice that it is impossible to put an M 5x25 button head cap screw and an M 5x8 button head cap screw through the two perpendicular holes in the belt clip? I had to grind down one side of the 5x8 screw to make it work… What am I missing here?
Thank you!
-D
Hello. Is there anyone in Portland, Oregon who can help me assemble the unit? I began a a few months ago never finished it and I’m afraid I just won’t be able to do it.
moving along, one step at a time. I am in the process of moving (both my personal belongings into a new residence, AND my woodworking equipment into a new shop). Needless to say, I’m burning the candle at both ends (and hitting it with a blow torch in the center).
With this said, I had the oppertunity to FINALLY set up my XCarve Pro last week. I have not yet made my first cut - stay tuned.
Feedback:
the good -
fit and finish are excellent. I was impressed from the second I cut off the stretch wrap and opened the crate. Very well packaged
I liked the fact that there were assembly videos for every step of the process.
The not so good
-
There were a couple of hiccups along the way as several of the bolts are labled nearly the same, but are clearly not the same, and so we had to take too much time trying to figiute out which bolts went where. when I got to installing the rails to hold the wasteboard, there were not enough of these bolts (8 short). Upon completion I discovered 8 extra of the cap bolts (???) so I stole 8 bolts from the wooden clamp hold downs, and went to the hardware store the next day and replaced them. I honestly do not know if the instructions were wrong, the bolts were wrong in the packaging, or if I screwed up. So the message is, they [the bolt packaging] could be more clear. What about adding the use purpose on the label? Or an ‘Installation step #’ on the baggy ?? just a suggestion. Not a major deal, but an area of possible improvement
-
dust collection vs dust extraction.
Like many woodworkers, I own a dust collection system. However, the dust boot on the XCarve Pro is clearly made for dust extraction (for the uninitiated, this is ‘high volume/low pressure VS. high pressure/low volume’ “Dust collection is the former whereas dust extraction is the latter. The smallest hose size used on dust collection is 4”, which means that I need to buy an aftermarket dust boot, or a dust extractor.
I realize that the latest shipments of the XCarve Pro are being shipped with dust extractors. I believe that this is THE WRONG APPROACH. This adds unnecessary costs to the machine. Instead, Inventables should offer a dust boot choice when buying the machine. You should offer the current boot for those without a shop full of machines running in a central dust collection system and offer a 4" dust boot for those of us with a dust collection system. Then you could offer your Fien dust extractor as an added option for those for whom the Xcarve pro will be the first woodworking machine in the shop, and have neither. -
Packaging
Please consider offering a return freight feature to return the pallet and crate. I applaud you of your packaging. there was ZERO damage to my machine. The crate and packaging were very well thought out.
HOWEVER… it took me three days to dispose of the packaging. The pallet had to be broiken down (I will use the wood), the cardboard crate had to be cut into small squares and burned in my firepit (it would take weeks to try to recycle all f that, one can at a time), and as there is no styrofoam recycling center within an hour of me, I had to cut the styrofoam into small blocks with my bandsaw (which made my shop look like the set of a Frank Capa movie, and three cans of acetone (@ $20 bucks a can), and an afternoon melting it down and filling a 5 gallon bucket).
My time is worth something, and add in the $60 bucks of Acetone, and we are looking at the freight costs to get it returned to you wherein you could reuse it to ship the next machine. In the process, you could apply for “green company” status. You could either add the cost of shipping to the cost of the machine, or make this an option (the most honest approach being that you consider how much it would save you to get the crate back, and split the cost of shipping with the buyer. As a person moving and trying to set up a shop at the same time, the time wasted disposing of the shipping materials is time that I DID NOT HAVE, so return crate shipping would have been invaluable. -
Offer a bench
I needed the option of a bench that could be broken down if/when my business grows to the point that I need to move into a larger shop. A 6’ x 6’ bench is simply too large to be moving whole. I therefore took two 6’ x 2’ rack systems, and reengineered them, and after some welding and creativity, I made the perfect bench with usable space underneath which can be completely broken down if/when I need to. The week that it took me to engineer and build this bench is TIME THAT I DID NOT HAVE. I would gladly have bought a bench from Inventables had it been offered. Offer one in the future. -
surfacing the wasteboard
I had to call tec support to make it through the planing of the waste board. There needs to bebetter instruction on this. The instructions state to set the bit “just above the waste board.” First, that is kind of vague, and second, it is wrong. I ran the sequence four times and the only planning that actually happened was to a couple of high spots. It did not leave a completely flat surface (likely because the zero spot was also a high spot). The correct instructions would have been to set the bit touching with slight pressure onto the waste board).
Next, the software assumes that the step was successful after running it. That is very presumptuous. It was not complete either of the four times that I ran the program. Instead of saying “congratulations, your waste board has been flattened” (or whatever it actually said), it should offer to run it again with the bit being lowered a small amount (100th of an inch perhaps). Instead, I had to go back through all of the rezeroing etc, to repeat the process. This was very time consuming. Again, not a major problem, your tec support is AWESOME, but this is an area that could really use some improvement. -
Wrong tools
The bad:
thus far, I cannot say that there was anything ‘bad’ about the set-up. The aforementioned are minor areas wherein I feel improvement could be made, but thus far, I’m impressed. I took video of every step of the way, and once I get my shop set up and ready to open, I will post those videos, as I feel they wikl be helpful for future buyers of the machine.
the above posted mysteriously as I was typing “wrong tools”…
Here is that billet poijnt"
- wrong tools
I cannot imagine the person would buy an XCarve Pro who does not own a basic set of tools. I own wrenched, sockets, a level, tork wrench, etc… Oddly, the one tool not included happened to be the one that I broke and had not replaced is my digital caliper… haaa, haaaa… I’ll need to get one.
And yet, There were only three bits included. I am new to CNC, so pardon my ignorance, but wouldn’t someone buying a CNC machine need CNC bits?? It seems to me that Inventables included tools that most professional woodworklers would own and did not include tools that ALL CNC purchasers would need. Again, I could be wrong. Perhaps the average buyer of a XCarve Pro is the person upgrading from a base model XCarve, and thus already has bits. Perhaps making the tool kits optional would be a better approach. Like the dust extractor mentioned above, some people buying this machine already have dust collection or dust extraction and need one or the other - or neither. The same applies with tools and bits. Perhaps, built into the price of the machine is a ‘credit’ that the buyer can apply toward what he/she actually needs. Instead of including a $500 dust extractor, give a $500 credit to be used toward the tool kit, the dust extractor, or sets of bits (and of course offer a choice of dust boots depending of the dust removal system the end user plans to use).
just a suggestion. Again, overall I am very happy thus far.
Joe
Just remembered one other thing:
- No GFI outlet
I had read in other places that the machine would not work on GFI, but had forgotten this vital part. When it came time to ‘power-on’ the breaker kept tripping. We had to stop the assembly. I was panicked because I thought that I had bought a lemon.
The following day I called Tec Support and was told to change out the breaker and it would likely be fine. That is exactly what happened. As I am proficient in electrical work, changing the breaker was a quick 10 min job, and WHAM!!! the unit powered up without an issue.
Suggestion to Inventibles: repeat the ‘no GFI’ warning in that step of the instructions. It could save users like me who have shops which have been wired according to building codes.
Can you look my request under" X probe on a dinosaur" category I may have binned it to the wrong place
Our FRC high school team inherited a Inventable X carve -see attached - trying to find a manual -need the settings i think they are 1000mmX1000mm , has a DWP 611 , 2gt 6mm belts, , belt drive /acme tread and I’m assuming an X controller ( see pic ) and will the Easel software without a key ( from a receipt ) work, the cable port on the controller is a printer type not the C type
