My X controller is on back order and hear that it wont ship until the 20th of the month. Hope I get it by the holidays. Anyway, I have been reading a lot on the forums and gaining a lot of useful knowledge about certain things. I wanted to ask the community about different things that you have learned about your x carve that someone who is completely new at should probably know. Things like tools, measuring, and cnc bits. Or useful projects to cut out like a dust shoe which I am still looking for plans since I don’t really know how to use easel much yet. I found a large thread on dust shoes where Phil shared a lot of insight on them as well as others and will probably be a great start for me. I ordered myself some double stick tape since many users found use from that. Any other small things that I should pick up that make x carve life easier? These are what I can think of off the top of my head.
The main use I would like to get out of my x carve is inlay work. I would like to be able to personalize projects for clients. I make a lot of cutting boards and cheese boards and follow a lot of mtm wood videos on YouTube.here is his channel https://www.youtube.com/user/mtmwood He uses some kind of V shape bit to carve both his pocket and the piece that fits in so that there are no gaps which is important for food sanitary reasons. Wondering if any of you have experience with that and if easel can handle it.
I have the majority of my machine built. Everything went together well but had a bit of trouble with the z axis giant screw. That whole mechanism seemed extremely stiff and had lubricated it quite a bit. Is that normal? I can spin the screw but with a decent amount of force. Will the stepper motor be strong enough to move it? I guess Ill be finding that out when I get the x controller. I also read other threads that say you should be able to spin the v wheels with your thumb while they are on the carriage and if you cannot, the eccentric nuts are too tight.
Did you put the ACME screw in a hand drill and run the Delrin nut up and down it a few times? That tremendously helps the tightness of the Z axis movement.
I actually did do that as a tip from watching one of the youtube builds prior to building this machine. It seemed to help initially but still seems a bit tight. playing with it now.
I am looking into that now. IT seems like I had my mounting screws to the delrin block on really tight and was causing a large amount of friction for the v wheels against the carriage. That definitely seemed to help that issue out. Will it be an issue now though with the screws being a bit loose?
You definitely have a lot of useful tips in here. I have a few of the bits from the inventables store just to get me started and to learn how each one operates. Ill have to look into f-engrave and see how that software is. Selling my creations shouldn’t be too difficult since I sell a lot of my work and I will definitely set a aside a portion for getting more bits as time goes on. I also ordered a dedicated 1/8th collet as per recommendation of phil and that should be here this weekend.
I like the idea of keeping a file of circles and squares just to see if everything is cutting correctly. Do you know of any files that can really show any errors of the machine as it cuts?
Besides the Z pulley set screws where should the locktite be used. Not sure of the earlier version but the 2.0 uses nylock nuts on most everything.
I too am waiting on the X-Controller but learning a lot just reading the daily post on the forum. I too was wondering about the stiffness of the acme screw. Just went and “adjusted” the torque of the attaching screws - problem fixed!