Enclosure - Good day everyone. New to your family

okp · February 22, 2018, 6:46pm

Hi everyone,

I’m from Paris and a new joiner in the CNC world. I went XCARVE because of all the good things I hear and watched about it. I got the laser cut in the package too.

I have to say that the instructions are perfect. I managed to build the CNC in several hours. It’s all about patience.

The CNC test is fine but I need to wait for the travel adapter (Robbosavy only shipped it with the UK cord). I got one from amazon that will arrive tomorrow. So I didn’t went up to run the Z probe yet.

My project is pretty simple but seems a journey as I started to watch lots of tutorial but don’t get the approach. I’m using Solidworks and modeled this enclosure. I 3D printed it in the past, but now my plan is to have this milled in a block of wood so I can make it a mold.

I got Easel but cannot import anything appropriate. I tried to export it in IGS or STEP… but can’t get anything into easel.

Any help would be helpful. Thanks a lot !

Cheers

ChrisRice · February 22, 2018, 7:13pm

Easel will not do 3d. You will need a 3d software such as Fusion 360.

OmarAlamy · February 22, 2018, 7:36pm

you might be able to use the solidworks CAM package.

okp · February 22, 2018, 8:22pm

thanks for the advices. I’m going to look at solid works CAM package. I also tried fusion back in the days but not for CNC milling. I assume that I could import the STEP file in Fusion and see how this goes.

okp · February 23, 2018, 10:22am

seems the easiest way is to go via Fusion 360 and design the mold in Fusion 360 then use the plug in available on inventables for the export.

okp · February 23, 2018, 6:35pm

huge thanks @PhilJohnson. If it works, I owe you a big pint of beer !

I’ve started to discover the machine as a beginner. I’m impressed (although the first carving was a fail due to setting the material to 18mm … and it was 15mm. I managed to push the red button fast enough to avoid destroying the 1/16 bit! Lesson learnt.

I would like some advice from you if that’s not asking too much. I have several enclosures (other style) that I need to mill into. I think there are several approaches to make this working.

The box

First, this is what I do manually and it"s a PITA!

So with the XCARVE, this should be way easier, directly in easel. My question is what would be the best approach.

Create some 4mm x 50cm boxes as you can see one on the picture below? That should make the sides. I set the home manually and it’s working well.

Now the question is… what about the horizontal lines because these are not the same height.

Should I consider this as a whole box (by putting the good dimensions in the material) ?

Thanks for the help !

Cheers.

okp · February 23, 2018, 8:53pm

Thanks. I’ll do it in easel.

coming back to the enclosure mold… it’s not as easy as I thought even by watching a lot of tutorials.

Bringing the enclosure in Fusion is as you said working fine in STEP.

Then I create a second box on Fusion that will be the material I’m going to mill into. Up to there it’s OK.

Then go to CAM, create the bit but when I do the simulation, it acts weird.

okp · February 23, 2018, 9:35pm

I’ve continue to investigate. It seems that it failed to process or process weirdly because my enclosure was a shell.

I don’t know if it’s better or if it looks like something “normal”. here is the gcode in easel

I got a warning in fusion (using 1/8)

Warning: One or more pockets were not machined because they are too small to be reached with given ramping constraints!
Generation completed with 1 warning(s) in 2.2s.

RobinSandeman_allen · February 24, 2018, 2:40am

It sounds like you need to go into th linking tab in your operation and lower the ramping helix, i can get more specifics if you need, i just need to get to my pc…

okp · February 24, 2018, 11:57pm

thanks. I managed to mill the first box (not the mold plug) but I noticed that the Z axis or Y axis are not leveled. I put two wood ply and the MDF (above it) where I milled the big rectangle and you can see that the leveling is not consistent. In the middle of the carve, I have like 0.5mm more. On the left, I have also a bit less.

How can I get the carve leveled correctly? any tips?

I feel I need to to this before engaging a mold.

Thanks!

TamatoaChenne · February 26, 2018, 6:25am

Bonjour okp,

From what I learned here, I think you need to surface your wasteboard, if you have not done it already. Possibly your workbench or the mdf is not truly flat. There are topics covering this and there is also an easel project posted on the website with the toolpath that will achieve that. You will need the largest flat bit you can find.
This the one I ordered, I haven’t received it yet but easel estimates the carving time to be 37 min if I remember correctly.
Hope this helps.

HaldorLonningdal · February 26, 2018, 8:38am

Like Tamatoa mentioned, you probably need to skim cut your waste board.
Most sheet material isnt exactly the specified thickness so when you need exact/uniform carve depth you need to make sure the waste board is truly level related to the Z-axis.

A skimming cut with a wide flat bit, with 80% stepover, perform just that.
Just go 0.5mm depth per cut and do one at the time, untill the surface is uniform.

MDF however is not very tolerant to moisture / moisture changes so re-skimming might be required from time to time.

okp · March 4, 2018, 9:13pm

thanks for the support ! I’ll do that for the wasteboard; great tips!

Now I’m stuck on the enclosure. It’s pretty simple but I’m failing somewhere.

A quick video if anyone would like to support. The STP file is good and a solid block. I understand the concept of the model, the box but I can’t get it correctly.