I am trying to create a project with text. Everytime I carve it messes up. I’ve changed fonts and depths and still it comes out garbled.
It looks like I had too many already.
I don’t think the font is your problem. It looks like you are having issues with feeds and speeds.
I’m guessing you are using a standard X-carve with belts. If the router is moved around faster than it can really cut through the material, it will put load on the belts and these can stretch which will cause the alignment of the letters to be off. Also, the stepper motors can sometimes fail to reach the desired movement and this causes “loss of steps” (the router is in a different location than the controller believes it to be). When you have a project that makes pass after pass, loss of steps will cause the first and second passes to be misaligned. You can see that with the zeroes in the hundred percent.
I suggest that you revisit belt tensioning and machine alignment first. Next, I suggest that you slow down the feed rate, and perhaps increase the number of passes so that the router has more time to cut away material. You should make sure that your router bit is fresh and sharp. A dull bit will cause you problems. Also, I’m not sure what bit that you are using in your carve. The zeroes of the percent do not look like you used a V bit. Flat endmills may need to run a little slower for a clean cut. You might also try cutting other material to see if that works better.
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Harry,
Thank you for your response and advice.
I don’t think I have belts. It looks like gears to me. As far as the bit, it is a 60 degree V bit, though it has been used a bit. Can they be sharpened or just replaced? And I was using MDF for test runs as not to waste the expensive wood I plan to use for the final project and due to those two reasons the inside of the Os are coming out. I want as concerned with that as the misaligned characters. I haven’t messed with the speed rate, just assumed the program was smarter than me and knew what speed it should rub with the material I tell it I’m using. Back to the machine, do the gears need to be greased or oiled? I’ve never seen anything on that.
It looks like you have the X-carve Pro. It should easily be capable of your project. Still, it looks like something is off physically with the machine.
I recommend that you contact Inventables support and work with them rather than working through the forum.
You have belts, they are under the covers and connect the stepper to the ball screw for each axis.