Multi bits

[JordanLee1]

I’ve been making assumptions about your knowlege and skill level, and Neil is right - assume nothing and make sure your machine is true. I think you need to ‘start from scratch’ persay. I have had to do this several times on both machines. Go through every bit of the setup process of your machine documentation again, and ensure that your calibrations are all correct and true. I also run a level (at least half the width of your gantry) and use a digital level on top of that.

This can be hard to figure out, but if you have a 4x4 gantry machine, sacrifice a piece of wood (or use your wasteboard - not recommended) to make a square 47"x47" at a minimal depth, and cut a square. Is it visually square? Measure from each edge to confirm. If it isn’t, you need to do it again. These machines do kinda suck for that, because I did it, but it still isn’t right. Re-evaluate, and do it again. If your calibrations are out, this will show you.

Take a pause right here. These are two different machines - a computer, and a cnc. The computer is a stupid device that does what you say to send a file to another stupid device in the cnc. It is very important to establish a clear communication between the two, and make sure that each one is doing what it is supposed to do.

I’m going to leave ‘tiling’ out of this for now, because that is another whole level of complication that I don’t think you are ready for yet. No offense intended, but don’t add complication until you have the basics.

You appear to have some settings wrong in one or more of your design software, or your cutting software. It may be in your machine settings in Easel, or it may be in the size of your project before it is imported into Easel. I’m still making assumptions - I can’t see what you are doing, I can only read about your frustrations and try to figure out what is happening, and try to assist.

[JosephJohnson1]

Okay,

here is the project:

Cabinet Project

two very simple wall cabinets.

multiple points and questions from Niel and JordanLee, let me hit them in order:

Niel:
I cannot say for certain that I am doing everything correctly. Again, I do not know what I do not know. But going from what I do know, it sure seems that I did everything correctly. I do not know if there is a bug in the cabinetmaker software, I’m awaiting a call from Armani (awesome guy in case you haven’t had the pleasure - both he and Francis have the patience of saints). Hopefully he will have discovered some answers.

as far as successful cuts, I’ve had failures and successes, and the odd part is that there is little rhyme or reason. I attempted to carve a simple cross. It messed the whole thing up. We reviewed everything and could find no reason why it didn’t work. I rebooted the machine and computer, tossed on some scrap wood, hit carve and it came out perfect - without me doing anything else. So it’s hard to learn when I can’t find the cause of the problem.

Again, there have been several ‘operator errors’ and I’m learning. Some of them make me shake my head, such as nearly everything requiring a work-around, and/or the software allowing an obvious mistake, but in fairness, i know that the software guys have a million things on their plates, and some of the obvious “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!” moments are already on their ‘fix lists’, so I just chalk those up to experience.

As for homing the machine, I know what it does, it recalibrates (not the best word I know) the machine, or better put, lets the machine know where the spindle is in relation to the wasteboard. As to WHY it needs to be done between each and every operation? No, I’ll never understand that one. I can shut my computer off and turn it back on and I do not need to recalibrate it or reprogram it.
It seems to me that adding some memory into the tower to keep the coordinates on hand when it is powered off, or in between carves might be a good idea, but I am NOT a computer programmer and I have no idea how the digital world works, so I won’t pretend to speak with authority. I only know that none of us would use a computer that we had to reprogram every time we left a page or powered it down. Heck, my Blu-ray player can be powered off and pick up the movie where it left off, but I’m staring at a rabbit-hole that I don’t want to go down, so I’ll accept the “it is what it is” answer.
As for ‘under the hood’ - nope. Again, I’m very much an analog guy. VERY mechanically inclined (I once built a car from the ground up), but as for the digital world - clueless. If I can see it and touch it, I can figure it out. But as already mentioned, I can’t see those little X’s and O’s… so it’s all a mystery, so I do what I’m told, in the order that I’m told to do it.

JordanLee:

You raise a very good point. Perhaps back to September is where I must go and start all over again. As mentioned earlier, I’m expecting a call from Aramani (Tec Support) and I’ll discuss this with him. Then again maybe he’ll have good news for me.

frankly I hope that it’s all ‘operator error’ if so, I can actually learn something. we shall see.