hey all, I just finished my build and im getting ready to start messing with this thing. I notice on older models of x-carve that they have a grid that aligns with easels plotting. whats the best way to make sure my material is where its supposed to be in this dimension so as to work with easel in the 2d world? carve a grid into the board? any best practices would be greatly appreciated. thanks for your time. JC
The older design had a few flaws, the main ones being that users wouldn’t surface them thus the wasteboard surface was not parallel plane to the spindle movement… instead they would try to use a bubble level which left high and low spots at best,… and a slope at worst. .
Thst Said, youll want to surface the wasteboard, then you can use a vbit to engrave your own lines as desired. The actual spacing doesn’t really matter, but you can use the array tool in easel to line up the lines to specific spacing if desired… ot just grab the grid file that’s on the projects page (click projects at the top of this page and then search for “grid”)
awesome man! thanks a ton!
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hey, one other thing. so when I home the machine bottom left, thats actual true zero on the machine correct? so when I run a grid cutter on the machine (after I surface) as long as I have zero on my y axis set in easel, it will put my top left, top right and bottom right all at their true “zeroes” ? I hope this makes sense.
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There are 2 zeros when working with a machine with homing…
There is home zero (the point where it hits all 3 limit switches)
then there is work zero… this is the point YOU set when yoh click “carve” and go through those few steps…
What the home zeros do is (if you turn on soft limits) it prevents your machine from crashing into any side or top… it also gives you the ability to rehome after a carve and bit swap and even if you moved it by hand during the bit swap you can still click “use last x,y” and only rezero the Z and it’ll retain the prior work zeros…
Like Seth said, surface your wasteboard. The grid on the old board was useless IMO.
Ive completely changed my wasteboard to my own design but essentially I surfaced the board and created a “pocket” with the max X and Y dimensions and .0625" Z depth. I now have a perfectly square corner on X and Y that are also the machine home. I start almost all of my cuts at that location.
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This sounds a lot like what I’m after. The only issue I have is that I have the new 2021 x-carve with t slots and I really want to be able to have a sacrificial board and all the t-slots and threaded hold down holes available. How did you get your x and y corner perfectly square? Everything I see when someone cuts a pocket appears to have a slight curve to it. Thanks a bunch
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I just cleaned it up with a chisel by hand. The corner being perfect really isn’t all that important since I know the x and y and z are all perfectly square.
I added grid lines to my X-Crave Pro, I spaced them at 50mm. I use mm because I use a Laser to engrave some of my projects and it helps to align my work to the laser. I also lasered a grid on my laser table.
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So this is my plan. Mind you I haven’t made a single cut or line with my machine. I’m going to make a square line in my current board. 29.528 x 29.528. Once done I’ll throw up a piece of mdf amd cut that out to the same dimensions. I’ll then set that piece exactly onto the square line that is my true cut space that I cut first. Once that’s done I’ll figure out how to space my holes for my clamps and then cut through the piece for my t slots. After all that I’ll surface the piece. Then I’ll lay out some grid lines over the piece so if I want to lay things out away from bottom left I can. With all of this being my plan, does anyone have any suggestions for which bit to use for grid lines and what would a good depth be? And if anyone’s wondering I’ll be using another thin piece of mdf under the new one I’m cutting so I don’t thrash the original. Thanks again and have a great day.
So this is my plan. Mind you I haven’t made a single cut or line with my machine. I’m going to make a square line in my current board. 29.528 x 29.528. Once done I’ll throw up a piece of mdf amd cut that out to the same dimensions. I’ll then set that piece exactly onto the square line that is my true cut space that I cut first. Once that’s done I’ll figure out how to space my holes for my clamps and then cut through the piece for my t slots. After all that I’ll surface the piece. Then I’ll lay out some grid lines over the piece so if I want to lay things out away from bottom left I can. With all of this being my plan, does anyone have any suggestions for which bit to use for grid lines and what would a good depth be? And if anyone’s wondering I’ll be using another thin piece of mdf under the new one I’m cutting so I don’t thrash the original. Thanks again and have a great day.
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