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I bought my X-carve a while back and now finally having time to do stuff on it. But I am having a few issues. First, I have searched this forum and cant find what I am looking for. I have two problems I have included two pictures…
In the first picture you can see at the bottom of the board there is a “lip” left behind that gets wider as it goes right. The problem is the whole image from Easel that is being carved is tiled down and to the left just a little. I have positive board is square on the waste board and I have went through and fine tuned the steps.
In the Second Photo you can see that how uneven the passes are…How in the world do I fix this??
The wood is Baltic 1/2’’ plywood, I am using a 1/8 2-flute straight cut. I have Easel set to Birch plywood. Feed Rate 35in/min, Plunge rate 12in/min, Depth per pass 0.07 in. Cut time is 3hr 21mins.
Hi.
There is a youtube guy cncnutz that has a couple of videos that explains about fixing a possible non-square gantry. Episodes 131 and 132 are what I used and it fixed a similar problem for me. Also, it looks like a possible stepover adjustment. And, I’ve seen mentioned that running the toolpath for a second time might also clean some fuzzies.
If I cut this sign I would like to do it in two stage cut. First bigger bit about 11-16mm then 1/8 inch compression bit. It’s hard job for machine cutting it all with 1/8.
Ok guys, you have helped me a ton! I should have been doing a freaking two stage cut to begin with, and just learned how on here.
However I did go the the CNC Nut you tube and belt myself a a tramming bar with a dial indicator. I see now the the router leans slightly forward and to the right. NOW, how do I adjust to fix this. I tried looking through the forums and it seems like this is not very common. Which things do I adjust to level my router to my waste board now?
adjust v wheels on z axis to make it nicely square to material and don’t got to fast or to deep with 1/8 or it will bend slightly when you cut profile round letters
Please, whatever you do, don’t do this. The Vwheels are NOT there for tramming. They are there for motion. They should all have roughly equal resistance to spinning or else you’ll have other cut issues.
To properly tram the Z axis, you need to loosen the Makerslide from the carriage and rotate/shim that.
Robert!
Thanks for all your Help! Adjusting the Xaxis end plates helped a lot, but its still of a little, so I will be skimming my beautiful waste board. Any recommendations on how exactly to this?? (i.e. bit size, easel template)
Make yourself a project, size of your cutting area, and set depth of cut at for example 0.1 mm, fast feed rate, and put a large bit in it. Have a go once and you will see where are humps. If there is a need lower it down again, how much you need, zero Z and go again until you see it was cutting everywhere.
It looks like you have 1000mm x-carve so you cutting area is 780x780mm if I remember right. You can check it in easel settings, but your real measurement my be different. Depends where you’ve put stoper on the y and X rail
What are you aiming to accomplish with shimming the wasteboard? Is it still trying to tram out the spindle? Your better off adjusting your Y axis rails or the Z Makerslide than trying to shim the wasteboard.
Most likely it the MDF has swollen in certain spots due to humidity so shimming won’t help but skimming it will. You’ll also see what issues you have remaining when you skim because the cut will show you.
Before you skim just get a felt tip pen, golf pencil, marker, crayon and use that as a bit or attach it well on the router. Home it and have it run a circle, a horizontal, vertical and diagonal line. I have done this a few times to get a better picture of whats going on. If you see that the vertical line is the same pressure and makes contact all the way up but the horizontal line lits off the table to can watch and even measure the flaw in the board. If it lifts off the board to the right you can rehome it and draw a shorter line from a spot further to the center of the board from left to right just to see if its evan. Obviously don’t turn on the spindle and allow lots of clearance between the spintal and the board. A felt marker will just bend over and you can pause the cut if its pushing too hard. It won’t change your approach but you’ll get to see how aggressive the fix would be.
As I side note I would double check all hardware to make sure its tight and that the eccentric screws are in the correct position so that there is no play. If there is play in the gantry its going to do odd things and skimming won’t be the first thing you should do. I’d also recommend loctite if you didn’t use it.
On second thought it would totally change your approach if you noticed that the board was dead on and when no load was applied it worked flawlessly. In that case something else is happening.
If you really want to straighten out the minor errors in you router/spindle.
Place a 12x12 sheet of glass under your router and use that to tram off of that. There’s no point in trying to make your router straight based on an uneven piece of MDF. Take your dial and shorten your “training” bar. Turn the dial so you can see he numbers. Without turning you collet move the carriage left and right and back and forward. Shim the glass so all directions read the same. Then you can turn your collet 180 deg that will give you a true reading of any error. Then for the sake of all things holy. Skim the sexy off that MDF Ok
and use that as a bit or attach it well on the router. Home it and have it run a circle, a horizontal, vertical and diagonal line. I have done this a few times to get a better picture of whats going on. If you see that the vertical line is the same pressure and makes contact all the way up but the horizontal line lits off the table to can watch and even measure the flaw in the board. If it lifts off the board to the right you can rehome it and draw a shorter line from a spot further to the center of the board from left to right just to see if its evan. Obviously don’t turn on the spindle and allow lots of clearance between the spintal and the board. A felt marker will just bend over and you can pause the cut if its pushing too hard. It won’t change your approach but you’ll get to see how aggressive the fix would be.