Wasteboard Question

I am new to the X-carve and just set everything up and have been able to make some basic cut out and such already. I have a question though about the wasteboard. I received 4 ( MDF ) wasteboards and have attached them to the machine and that is all fine but I have seen many pictures of other people’s machine with a wasteboard with numbers on there. It also has a O ( x ) and a O (y) and correlates to easel and where to place the material etc …Mine has none of this information. Is there a way that I can find the o,o with my current wasteboard ? Are there some dimensions that I can work off of ?

I have also seen that some people will make their own wasteboards out of MDF. If this is the case do we put the “dimensional” wasteboard on top of the wasteboard that came with our machine ? That seems odd to me. Is there not a way that I can just make a chart on my current wasteboard ??

Then my other question is how low should the z axis go ? I have my wasteboard assembled and have a 1/2 piece of plywood on it and then another really thin 1/4 piece of wood on top of that and the z axis will not go low enough to cut through the 1/4 material. I know the z axis won’t go any lower because I have tried to jog it lower. I am using a 1/8 straight router bit.

Any insight would be great !

This is the older one-piece wasteboard. The lettering and grid really have nothing to actually do with where the machine X & Y zero is unless you configure your machine to be that way. The things that determine where your X & Y Machine Home position is at are the limit switches on those axes. When you perform the homing cycling the machine will be at the X & Y position for the Machine Home.

You can definitely use a V-Bit and carve any pattern in your wasteboard that you want. You could then just fill that in with paint (or paint it and then carve). A lot of people will even place a thin sacrificial wasteboard over their original wasteboard to keep it nice and clean. This method allows you to just resurface/replace the thin sacrificial wasteboard and keep the original one.

You should be able to carve down into the wasteboard at least a little; otherwise, you would never be able to carve through material completely. Can you lower your router in the spindle mount? Can you post pictures?

{:0)

Brandon Parker

Very similiar topic here:

Great, thank you for your comments !!

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