My project isn't carving as set up in easel

Thanks Russ! As for setting Z, when the rough cut was done, it returned to “home” and I turned off the spindle, locked the motors after raising Z, changed the bit to the 1/8 and carefully tightened it so as to not move XY. Then hit carve and used the touch plate as before. Is this not the way to do it?

I greatly appreciate the help BTW so THANK YOU! This has been super frustrating. I own a Glowforge as well and it has been 1000 times easier to learn. I feel like I have a big paper weight with the X-Carve at this point, lol.

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You’re welcome, that’s the correct was to do it. If you’re setting the Z height in the same location for both bits then it should work. If I have the room I will go up 3" and over 3" to set my Z. Then when I change to my detail bit I can do the same up and over 3". That way I set the Z in the same spot of the wood.
Good Luck
Russell

So, in experimenting with different bits in easel, I have it set with your settings, Russ. I also changed the 1/4" bit to a 1/8" for the rough and it made the carve much faster (which makes zero sense to me). I left the 60° v-bit as the detail bit. I no longer see that it’s trying to make deeper areas in the carve but I still see that there are dark blue areas uncarved. How can I get it to remove the dark blue areas? If you do a simulate, you’ll see what I am talking about.

If you zoom in on the preview those areas should cut. The 60 degree bit will cut those areas so the lines are close toghether

The area above “webb’s” and above and below pac-man are what I am referring to, look in the last carving pics above to see what I mean. I don’t want that result again, I’m wasting too much wood, lol :slight_smile:

The V bit cut some of it out, since the Z wasn’t set in the same spot the V bit didn’t know there was wood in that area. It will work now. As long as you set the Z in the same spot you will be good

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What if I used the v-bit for the whole project? Would that be a bad idea? I assumed that using the 1/4" first then the v-bit, that it would go faster but the 1/8" and v-bit is faster by a wide margin which makes no sense to me.

Also, In the pics above, I did set zero the same when switching from 1/4" to 1/8". That’s when it did its funky ghost tracing and carving too deep and not carving at all, so this is confusing to say the least.

The 1/8 bit is able to get into more areas than the 1/4 can because of its size, hence leaving less area for the 60 degree bit to clear. Just out of curiosity Have you surfaced your spoilboard?

I have not done anything to the waste board but check for levelness. It seems fine.

Yes, using just the 60 degree bit would take a long time because of the pocket that you’re cutting.

Russ, if using the 1/8" bit (downcut spiral) for the rough pass and the 60° vbit for detail, are the settings you posted above for the 1/4" good for the 1/8" ?

Also, is there a guide somewhere for proper bit speed settings? Lastly, I am running the spindle on setting 3, even though Inventables says to use 1, that seems too slow. I have the DeWalt 611. Is 3 good?

Yes those setting will be good for those bits. Also run your router on 1, anything higher than that will just wear out brushes faster. The router on one turns 16,000 rpms and that’s already to fast for cutting on a CNC. I purchased a spindle a couple weeks ago and I have been running it at 10-12,000 rpms and its has been working great.

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Thanks man! I appreciate the wealth of knowledge!

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You’re leaving speed on the table, @RussellCrawford.

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You think I can slow it down more?

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Yes, but I want you to speed it up!
What material are you cutting? Which machine? Endmill diameter & number of flutes? Feedrate?

I’ve cut MDF, plywood and walnut. I have been running the RPM’s between a frequency of 150-200. So I’m assuming that’s 9,000-12,000 rpm’s. I’ve tried 1/16” bits up to 1/2” 2 flute end mills. I cut out some 1/2” MDF today to make a spray paint can holder and I was using the 1/8” - 2 flute straight bit from inventables. I ran it at 100 ipm and a doc of .17 and it cut good.

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Here I was using a 1/2” 2 flute spiral bit cutting plywood. .2 doc at 60 ipm.

I think you could run at 120in/min at double the RPMs with no problem.
I am not familiar with the machine, though.

Probably so, I was just trying out a 1/2” bit