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David,
I have not loaded Carve onto the Mac yet although I have a Microsoft licence ready to go. There is an option on the Mac to split the disc to Mac and Microsoft on the same computer. On start up you can select whether to go into the Mac bit or the PC bit.
The PC section will run any PC based application compatible with the operating system (and thats one reason why i haven’t done it yet because my Microsoft licence is for the latest release and I need to check that Vcarve will run on it.)
The plans I am playing with at the moment have been legitimately obtained. I have not cut any wheels yet as I am waiting for the Dewalt mount to come from Inventables (it is in transit over the Atlantic at the moment) and I am trying to use the time to get ready for its arrival, this includes settling on a method of getting the code to the XC. At first glance Easel appears to be the way forward but as explained in an earlier post this is not as straightforward as I had hoped. I need to spend more time on Inkscape/Gimp/DraftSight to try and resolve the technicalities.
@RobertMatusiewicz - I’m vaguely aware that I can dual boot my Mac, but I kinda suspected it would be a hit & miss kinda thing. I"ll google this a little more to see if VCarve will run this way.
If you need a hand generating the code for your items, feel free to ask. Obviously I need lots of info besides the actual files themselves (cutter size, preferred speeds & feeds, material, metric or imperial etc).
I use an old Mac Mini and UGS to run my VCarve which appears to work fine. I generate the code in VCarve (or MeshCam) and them put them onto a thumb drive to load into the Mac.
Software that doesn’t run on anything other than Windows is dead to me
But I’ve stuck with Inkscape and Easel and am getting fantastic results. Happily doing my designs in Inkscape, importing to Easel for layout/cutting type and either carving from there, or if the laser is the destination, export the gcode for modification then sent to the X-Carve via ChiliPeppr. Straight forward, easy, all from a Mac and all with free software. As Easel is key, I’m happily involved making suggestions to improve the software, working on apps etc.
@IanWatkins - I’ve read elsewhere of folk who are happily running VCarve on their Mac - using either Bootcamp to dual boot the machine or using Parrallels to run it in a VM.
I’m tempted to try this, but I’m hesitant to spend $179 to buy a copy of Windows (Aussie pricing) to find out whether it works.
A colleague has an old laptop running XP he’s willing to donate to the cause, so I’ll try this first…
I’m running Linux Ubuntu 14.04
I have been using HeeksCAD which has a G-code generating function (then, I just use UGS to send it to the X-carve).
Building a gear in HeeksCAD was incredibly EASY! It has a gear function - just asks 2 basic questions: # of teeth and Pitch diameter (metric module)
I was not really happy when “x-carving” a 16-tooth gear that was roughly 1-1/2" in diameter… I don’t know if it is a software problem or maybe it’s just too fine a detail for my X-carve
They “work” as gears, but up close they are not “perfect” teeth.
I’m sure this little detail will throw off the clock by some amount, but I don’t plan on timing my life with it… just functional decoration…
My understanding is that all the timing is done by the pendulum. Providing your gear ratios are correct, the pendulum length adjustment should be able to get you pretty close to the best your clock will be.
Given the movement of wood with heat and humidity, I doubt a wooden clock would be able to be better than within four or five minutes a day anyway.
The smoother your mechanism runs, the less weight you’ll need to use to drive it. I’ve now been able to tweak mine so it runs pretty well. This has allowed me to add a second pulley to the back of the clock so that the drive weight cord is now attached to the weight, runs up through the pulley on the clock, down through the pulley on the weight again and then back up to the drum. This adds considerably to the “run time” between windings.
Doing this wouldn’t be possible the gears ‘bind’ anywhere at all. Having a little backlash is far better than anything being even slightly tight.
One of my work clocks runs at 1/10 of a billionth of a second, after smoothing. It’s for lightning detection.
But I’m personally happy with a clock that tells me if it’s lunchtime or not, which is why my next big project is going to be building one of these if I can.
