eShapeoko #422 to Norway

[WillAdams]

http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/ ... mendations

http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic ... 834#p21601

[AnonymousPerson]

http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic ... 834#p21601

Note - The Gartool URL from that post gives an "Internal Error" message now, as they seem to have reorganised their web site application and not put useful redirect code nor error handling in place.

This seems to be the correct link now:

http://www.garrtool.com/tooldetaillogin.jsp?edp=41030

[Kjellke]

I have to thank you both for the input! 3 New steppers are ordered and on their way, as well as some 1/8 end mills. Cheers guys!

Recent update, i figured i wanted to play around with something like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:327393 and a 2mm end mill.

Went and purchased some 4mm plywood, and the machine loves it! I have not started the real cuts, i made one small drawer to play around with feeds and speeds, and i managed to get nice cuts at 1,8mm depth of cut, and 1200 mm/min feedrate. No missing steps, and nice sound while cutting. It looks like it handles plywood better then mdf (or i may be completely wrong), however i am super excited to get the new steppers now, and see how much i will be able to push the feedrate in projects like this.

Cheers

[WillAdams]

One problem I had when cutting MDF was that when slotting the swarf would expand and clog the cut, which would then make succeeding passes more difficult.

Finally broke down and started doing any cut as a pocket cut at least half-again as wide as the bit.

The customizable box is _way_ cool.

[Kjellke]

Cool, i should try that! Is there any easy way to do this using illustrator and easel?

[WillAdams]

If you mean a pocket instead of a profile, yes. Just draw the additional geometry outside/inside the path and select both paths and use the pocket CAM operation instead of a profile cut.

FWIW, this was mentioned on the wiki on the MDF section of the feeds-speeds page.

[Kjellke]

Yeah i saw, live and learn every day. Next issue now is the dog-bones, the feature in easel worked wonders for the drawers, but for the box in general it does not work so well, i sat down in illustrator to make them on freehand, and quickly gave up on this project until i find a better solution

[AnonymousPerson]

Instead of dog bones in the corners, my cheating approach is to just do a drill pass in each of the corners instead. In the CAD/CAM program I'm using for toolpath generation (Fusion 360), it's really simple... I just click on the points, then export gcode. (ok, that's a slight simplification, but it's close to that simple)

[Kjellke]

Thank you for that feedback, after looking abit around i found this add on for Fusion 360
https://github.com/caseycrogers/Dogbone

It lets you select face you want to dog bone and your bit diameter and automatically creates it. Here is alot of constraints so it takes ages to do a face (like the side panel of this box) but works like a charm. Easy to install also! I highly recommend to test it out.

I am not rushing any projects with this, and just having fun all the way. But i am in good progress in making those drawers.
When i was sitting there watching the machine work on this project it hit me, why not buy a set of drawers for screws etc, for only a fraction of the price that the plywood costs.
What would be the fun in that? This is the first _useful_ project i am making on my eShapeoko, and i can imagine there wont be another drawer set in the world that i will find as cool as those, just because they are self made. (Even tho i did not make the plans, and frankly not making the parts either, the machine is)

Enough talk, some pictures. Have a good evening guys!

Cut in progress


Dogbone example


A few of the parts, all glued up. Fits like a glove

[AnonymousPerson]

They're coming along nicely eh?

With the dogbone stuff, yeah tried that. Seems useful... but for me, I kind of prefer the result from the drilled corners approach instead.

Each to their own I guess.