I’m a complete newcomer to the world of CNC and happily finished assembly on my X-Carve recently. So now that it’s running I’m trying my best to dial it in. I’m noticing that my depth of cut seems to vary and I’m trying to find out why. In these pics you can see peaks/ridges that seem to replicate themselves in the same place for each pass. Would there be something I can adjust to help with this? It seems to create a raised ridge diagonally from top to bottom and left to right in each of these test cuts.
Im also noticing that thisnis not a perfect square with straight lines to begin with (even though it was intended to carve as a straight square with Easel).
This is birch plywood with a 1/8 straight bit. Thanks for any suggestions.
Search for topics concerning squaring your spindle. That’s what those ridges indicate to me.
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Thanks. I did a lot of reading over the past few days. I’ll check that out as it seems there are so many variables I wasn’t quite sure as to what direction I should be looking in.
I wanted to follow up on this (in the event anyone else has had similar carves) as I have identified my problem. So per the advice of @JustinBusby I went ahead and did more research on squaring my spindle. I took a couple hours last night and made sure everything was square and that my DeWalt 611 was square. After doing all of this I was excited to again attempt the same carves on the same piece only to find that there was no improvement. I was pretty frustrated to say the least until I started removing variables from my set up.
As it turns out the first variable I removed was the answer to my questions and that was to remove the dust collection boot (which was connected to the hose and to my vac) from my X-Carve set up. After doing this my cuts had improved dramatically! So I must not have the tension-set-up on the hose correctly as it seems to pull and push my router out of square causing the examples in my first pics. If anyone has any tips on this that would be great as I’m eager to learn.
Funny thing is after I assembled this machine the last thing I thought I would be “dialing in” would be the dust collection kit that I ordered with my X-Carve. I’m going to search the forums for some ideas on adjusting this so that I can continue to use it with my X-Carve.
Here are some pics of the same carves, material, bit, etc when removing my dust boot and hose. I’m not sure what is considered within acceptance here but I’m happy with the improvements.
I’m using the kit the Inventables offers (dust shoe, bracket. Etc) hooked in my shop vac using a Dirt Deputy Deluxe.
I’ll check my v wheels again but I’ve adjusted them several times with no difference with the dust shoe attached. I think I don’t have the slack on the hose adjusted properly. When covering the entire work area there are places where the hose bunches up or gets tight (while attached to the swing arm) which seems to be putting excessive force on the placement of my spindle angling it enough to alter the carve. I’ll tighten the v wheels even more and see how that goes.
Thanks guys for helping.
Did you check your X carriage V wheels?
If your Z axis is tight, and you’re still applying a torque on the axis with the vac hose which will translate to the X carriage and if that’s not tight, that can rotate/flex and cause the Z to go out of square.
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I’ve adjusted both the X and Z wheels and have seen improvement but still not perfect. I’m considering a different set up for the hose as it seems it may be beneficial to suspend it from the ceiling versus from one of the corners of the work area. That said I seem to be the only one having this issue so I realize it’s user error at this point.
