Hello, I would like to be able to use a ballnose bit in easel but it keeps telling me I can only use in 3d carve. All I am trying to do is do a simple catch all tray out a board. Is there a way to use them in regular easel or not? thanks
Yes, you can, but not natively.
Normal carving always acts as if it has a flat-bottom bit, with a perfectly cylindrical body. That’s why it only asks you for diameter, because the rest is inferred. However, there’s no requirement that your actual bit be a cylinder.
In the case of a ball nose bit, yes, you could enter its widest diameter (the circumference of the ball) as the diameter of a custom bit and Easel will generate a path. However, you may find a surpise or two: while you’ll get the desired rounded-over curve on the perimeter, you’ll likely find that there’s a ton of uncarved material on the bottom. This is because Easel is expecting the bottom face of the bit to carve out a section of full diameter, but in actuality it’s almost zero (the tangent of the ball). This will likely leave you with a pattern of little mountains all over.
To avoid this, I’d recommend you do this: do one carve using a typical flat-bottom bit (using the appropriate style of bit to match the material/depth of cut you’re doing) and remove the interior majority. Then, just come back to the ball-nose bit to do the edge. You don’t need to approximate, you can do the math.
Let’s say you’ve got a piece of 12"x12"x1" wood, and you want to carve a pocket to leave 1/4" wood on all sides. Let’s assume you’re using a 1/4" diameter flat-bottom bit, and a ball-nose bit with a circumference of 1/4" as well. The simplest carve-out is going to then be a square of 11.5"x11.5" (leaving .25" on all sides), but you can’t do that with the flat bit because there won’t be any curve on the sides. Instead, use the flat bit to carve 11.125"x11.125", to the full depth. This will leave 1/8th of an inch of wood to remove along the perimeter (i.e., half the diameter of the ball-nose bit). Now, do a final pass of the ball-nose bit, removing just that perimeter (set the cut to be inside the curve).
The result should be that you can hull out 99% of the material with your flat bit, then use the ball-nose bit like a finishing pass (though it’s not the type built into Easel for obvious reasons).
(okay, technically a rectangle of 11.125x11.125x.75 is 92.8in2, and a rectangle of 11.25x11.25x.75 is 94.9in2, meaning the flat bit is cutting slightly less than 99% but still…)
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ok thank you i will try that, why is it though they can not include this kind of stuff like using a ballnose bit and such. Specially if you are able to use a ballnose bit in other programs. Just seams they limit them selves, and us to.
I’d venture that they want you to upgrade to Easel pro so they make money and stay in business. Once you know the basic requirements to using a cnc router, you can move away from the limitations of Easel.
So, realize that ballnose bits aren’t really appropriate for removing the bulk of material. This is why in 3D carving, you use a flat-bottom bit to remove the bulk and the ball-nose bit for detail. A ball-nose bit by definition has a virtually zero diameter at the base, meaning that to get a clean flat surface on the bottom, the bit is going to have to travel with virtually zero step-over. This means that the cut will be fantastically slow. Moreover, the angle on the cutter will be way less than effective: if you plunge a ball-nose bit into a material and move it laterally, recognize that the bit is going to be recieving resistence from multiple angles and against multiple angles. The result is going to be a large amount of difficult-to-predict stresses and a much higher chance of breaking or other problems.
This isn’t unique to CNCing, but rather common to all “spinning bit” cutting. For example, when we cut dovetails on a router, you always remove the bult with a cylindrical bit and only use the dovetail bit to remove the angled edges. To do otherwise would run into the same problem.
i have easel pro and still unable to use ballnose bits unless in 3d carve.
Yeah i realize that but what is getting me to want to step away from easel is in other software you are able to carve with a ballnose. say I want to cut out a pocket, using a bigger ballnose so my bottom edges are curved instead of sharp, also what about using to cut stuff like spoons and such. I downloaded a trial copy of vcarve pro and with in 5 min I designed something using just the ballnose bit.