I have been experimenting with signs in F-Engrave and after a lot of troubleshooting to understand the settings in the software and with some help of a reply from PhilJohnson stating the settings he uses I managed to get some good results. Now that brings be to my problem. All was working fine and I managed to produce a couple of signs but now the cuttings are very rough and lots of bits of wood is left behind. I thought it was a dull bit so I put in a new 60 degree V-Bit but it did not improve. I’ve played around with the feed rates and spindle speeds also with no success. Is this a g code problem or perhaps something going on with my X-Carve?
I should also mention that the Z Axis Acme rod and top pulley was a bit loose so I tightened that and all of the V-Wheels and belts but no luck!
Any Help is much appreciated!
Is it possibly lots of nodes? I don’t know how you create your designs to be cut, but I had bother out of the blue one day and if I zoomed in there were lots of excess nodes.
After deleting them everything ran as normal, but I had unexpected zigzags here and there (obviously the software treats each node as a point} with them in place.
This could be totally off the mark, but it’s hard without a pic
Thanks Phil,
I am new to all of this so I will as soon as I get home.
In the meantime I will upload a video of the carving as the Z-Axis sounds different then when I first assembled the machine and had carving success. You can also see some of the rough cutting I am talking about.
Also, I’ve attached the .dxf file and gcode file of one of the projects for reference:
DreamBig_9x9(8.0)_60.ngc (128.8 KB)
DreamBig_9x9(8.0)_60.dxf (1.3 MB)
Regards,
Jordan
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Thanks Phil,
I read one of your other replys to a post regarding spindle speed and you recommended using 1. If I recall I have never had it set that low even when I was playing around with it? I think mine was/is set to 3/4, could this be the culprit?
Looks like your “accuracy” in the “general settings” is set to 0.010. That is 10 times higher than the default 0.001. F-engrave allows the tool to deviate from the intended path by the accuracy value. (This is used in line fitting to reduce file size and really tiny movement commands.)
This may not be the issue but it isn’t helping.’
Here are some photos of a similar sign with the same F-Engrave settings.
I will try those adjustments. Here is one done prior with the same settings and cam out very clean.
Great, will give that a try. Thank you very much for your time. Do you have the link to the instructional showing how as I will be totally new to Inkscape after I download it tonight.
I understand that this wasn’t the most efficient way but was more frustrated that it worked on a couple of signs but is no longer the case. I will try a new approach.
Thanks for the info @PhilJohnson. I played around with this yesterday and came to a roadblock when saving the adjusted file back to .dxf. The new .dxf file converted all the new (simplified) line work back into spline segments and not closed loops. I need closed loop polylines for it to work with F-Engrave? Correct me if I am wrong.
The reason why my line work had so many points (nodes) was because I had to explode the splines and rejoin as line segments as F-Engrave wouldn’t recognize splines?
Wow, you are fast!! I will try these settings when I get home.
In a previous post @PhilJohnson you posted your typical v-carve settings which differ from what you have shown here [F Engrave (FREE V CARVING) and 20° V bit info - #40]. Also if I adjusted the Cut Depth Limit it would eliminate the clean up requirements. Is this recommended? I ask cause I am new to the cleanup operations and am nervous to change the bit and have the home position go out.
OK, I have the stock x-carve 1000x1000 w/ the Dewalt 611. I am running at between 20-30ipm and multi cuts @ .0625" per pass. Is that ok for a stock machine?
Does changing from 30-50ipm affect the quality of the cut? Do I need to increase the RPM of the spindle for faster cuts?
wow, I wouldn’t have expected speed 1 would be fast enough, good to know.
WRT v-carve cleanup settings you’ve specified a cleanup cut diameter of .116, what bit is used for that?
@PhilJohnson,
Here are the settings I am going to try tonight w/o cleanup. How does it look to you? I only ask cause I have been burning through material testing settings at an alarming rate!!! Any input is greatly appreciated.
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I bought the 60 and 90 degree bits from the Inventables site:
WRT plunge rate, I read somewhere that this does not apply for vcarving that is why I had 0?
Thx.
Here is the quoted text I had followed:
Feed Rate: 750 mm/min (default 127)
Plunge Rate: 0 NA for v-Carve
Z-Safe: 3.0 mm
Cut Depth: NA for V-Carve
Thanks very much for all your help. I will apply all the info to a test carve tonight.
Much appreciated
