Hi All,
I have just recently woken to this new world of CNC as I have been finding ways of making accessories for a board game “X-Wing” that I am a big fan of.
I wanted to make tokens out of acrylic or wood…very basic design.
It so happens by chatting to the right person at the right time I have been loaned a 4 axis CNC machine with Geckodrive G540 (I know how lucky am I). I was wondering if this is compatible with Easel? My aim is to generate income from this products I can sell to have enough for X-Carve or even Carvey (when it is available) because they are honestly beautiful, well design machines.
I wish I could tell you more but all I have been told it was purchased new on eBay some 2 years ago, told it is a China clone. Motors were replace due to older ones over heating, spindle replaced to 20,000rpm one? I have provided a picture.
It has a camera for something, a pen looking probing thingy (red ball on the end). I am so sorry that I don’t have a clue. I feel like a spoiled brat driving around an a new Ferrari dad just bought for me…
Can someone please shed some light or point me to the right place so I can learn more.
Mr. Clueless
Can’t shed any light on it but man isn’t it nice to have friends?
You may find the ShapeOko wiki of interest: http://wwww.shapeoko.com/wiki there is a bit about Gecko there under alternative/advanced electronics.
You should be able to use Easel to at least make G-code, though you may need to use some other comm / control program, since a Easel is intended for use w/ Grbl.
Camera is either for monitoring, or setting zero against stock.
The red thing is likely a touch probe.
Thank you so much. One thing for sure, I am looking forward to the day I can get my hands on Inventables product. Seems far friendlier.
I am so excite to eventually “making stuff”. I am a programmer by trade and get caught up in the 0s and 1s world but need to now make that connection between what I dream up with on the screen to actually feeling the end product.
This advice on the camera and touch probe is a great start to finding out their purposes.
Im pretty sure thats a 6040 CNC platform, pretty standard stuff.
You might be able to use Easel to generate the code, but you wont be able to carve straight from it.
The Camera is probably a monitoring camera, if you use something like chilipeppr to send G-Code you can see the camera on your browser.
The probe is basically a center finder, most advanced gcode senders have square, round, OD, ID probing macros which use the probe to find top and center of a workpiece, chilipeppr comes with top finder on Z axis but not on X and Y, you would need to make the macros yourself (not hard)
As a programmer, I would get Mach3 for that bad boy. You can easily program your own macros (or just find them on the internet). GCode is very easy to learn. Congratulations!
