Knocked these out on Thursday. I teach kids to code at a local “The Coder School” and one of my students told me how he loved Link’s Hylian shield, so I made a couple out of 1/2" Baltic Birch. Another friend said he would love to make the MPCNC and said the first thing he would make is a good sized Punisher, so to push him forward a bit, I made him one out of 1/2" Baltic Birch as well. I’m in the middle of making a Minecraft Redstone lamp right now… more to come after I finish it.
First cut of the Hylian shield
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Second cut of the punisher
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Finished products…
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I will say, that I’ve worked hard to get better at tool changes and it’s starting to show. I use Mark’s (aka. Some Old Coding Guy) process (thanks Mark!) to create two separate files. The key has been the second tool’s home. I always keep home off the piece and use an awl to mark home for both cuts (or more). I can then drop the bit into the hole and know I’m home. This doesn’t work well for large bits, but for 1/16", 1/8" or any v-groove it works great.
So simple to get a jpg off the net, bring it into Inkscape, clean it up, save the SVG, load into ESTLCAM and cut it on the MPCNC. Sweet…
I like it! The awl trick works good with ver bits but I had a hard time locating the center of 1/8" + end mills. I use stop blocks that Mark posted to thingiverse and they work great.
Thanks Josh. I tried using Mark’s spring clamps and even purchased some round nylon stop clamps, but didn’t get the accuracy I wanted. I punch a hole with my awl and the 1/8" bit fits in it. Then when I place the v-bit in it I sink it down until the gantry won’t move in any direction. Then I lift up the z axis.
If you have some time to give me some tips on Marks process, I’d like it. I’m still off 1/16" to 1/8" in some, not all of my cuts.
I mount my material, move the spindle to the start point and lower Z to touch the material so it doesn’t move. Slide the temporary hard end stops to the axis rollers and tighten them down. Once the hard stops are tightened I set my Z height and use light pressure to make sure everything is against the hard stops then power the machine on. After the cut is finished I change bits if I need to them move everything to the hard end stops again and start over. If I need to set Z at the same height I use a multimeter with alligator clamps and piece of foil tape on the workpiece.
Thanks Josh. I see a couple of things I could change. I had planned to add the z-probe soon. I was going to follow instructions to add it to the controller, but I like the multi-meter idea.
I like the idea of what this machine is capable of but after working with a Laguna CNC at our middle school I think it’s way faster to break the cuts into separate files and move the machine manually. If I understood programming better I would probably do things differently.
