My X carve is back up and running thanks to the great customer service at Inventables!
Turns out my Z motor had indeed failed, I installed the new motor that Inventables sent me and all is good again.
Now that the machine is functional again I started looking seriously at purchasing VCarve Desktop. I downloaded the trial and spent some time watching the excellent video tutorials they offer and I am very impressed with the power and ease of use of the software. I wanted to be sure I had a a valid method of actually cutting what I could design in the tool, so I downloaded the Paradise Box free project that will fully function in the trial version.
http://www.vectric.com/cool-stuff/projects/2011/paradise-box.html
I had to resize it to fit on a scrap piece of 5x9 cherry. That was fast and easy to do. The way they have designed the user interface is really good. The software has enormous power but it is still very easy to find the tool you need to make it do what you need.
After playing with Fusion360 and Bobcad-CAM software, the Vcarve software was a welcome relief from the massive complexity of those packages. I am sure Fusion360 is much better if you are wanting to machine mechanical parts, but for the type of wood carving I want to do the Vcarve seems to offer all the functionality I could ask for.
After the design is done createing the tool path was just a few key clicks to choose a vcarve operation, which vbit I was using (90 degree), the feed rate and DOC is built into the tool library (I set the DOC to .08 and the feed to 30 in/min). Then just generate the toolpath, save it with the X carve Post Processor (the mm version seems to work best) and it is ready for the Universal Gcode Sender. Almost.
I had a few bad starts where it would try to crash the spindle into the left rail. Thank goodness for the E stop!
I finally figured out that the workspace zero needed to be zeroed and the UGS did not zero it automatically . So I did a little research on the forum and learned that I needed to reset the zero with a
G92 X0 Y0 Z0
command before I started the carve.
So the process to start the job is:
- Open UGS
- Connect UGS to the X-Carve
- Load the gcode file (must end with ,NC extension) I also found that saving the gcode file to my dropbox account from the desktop machine I was running Vcarve on made it easy to load on the X-Carve’s laptop in the shop.
- Zero the tool at the bottom left corner on top of material
- use the command tab of UGS to enter G92 X0 Y0 Z0
- Check to be sure the work and machine positions are all zero
- send the gcode file to X-Carve
I started the job and it took about 35 minutes and looks better than anything I have done so far on the machine.
Here is the finished piece, it needs some sanding and clean up but I think it turned out really nicely
I now understand the discussion in another thread about how difficult it can be to clean up a carved piece like this. Lots and lots of tiny grooves that need sanding.
Here is the 3D view of the piece in Vcarve
Here is a short video of it being cut. I am so impressed with how quickly this is done with a Vbit.
