Test Cut Recommendation for CNC Noob

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
1

My crown test is working.

Tried cutting it, 1/16 wide bit 1 mm depth, instead of drawing it. Came out distorted. Improved a lot when I decreased the speed from 120 to 60.

I want to verify my setup before I go futher.

Can anyone recommend a noob recipe, with gCode, for cutting something out of ply wood, i.e. the panels on the low rider.

2

120 to 60 what? mm/min? mm/s?

The milling basics page is a good starting place.

3

Thanks Jeff

I’ve read that over. I’m looking for something like…

To cut a V1 logo from 3/8 plywood sheet with the attached gcode…

  1. Clamp a 6" x 6" or larger sheet in your workspace
  2. Install a 1/8" 2 flute upcut wood bit
  3. Zero out x and y
  4. Position bit in lower left corner of material (or wherever gcode expects)
  5. Zero out z to the top of the material
  6. Run gcode
4

Are you asking for a premade gcode file to mill?

That’s like letting another man cook on your grill :slight_smile:

I’d suggest you go go through the steps of making your own gcode to start getting your bearings with all this stuff. I’m sure we’d all be happy to help you through that process if you have specific questions. Re the v1 logo you can get svgs here: Logos | V1 Engineering Inc
Why not try loading one these into estlcam?

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5

Yeah, that would be fun. Sort of like the crown, but for cutting?

@vicious1, You had a thing where you were just cutting out the logo (no words) in various materials. Do you think something like that could be the “crown” of milling? Make a v1 coaster from 1/4" material, with very conservative settings?

There are a lot of variables in milling. This is much more difficult than 3D printing. It might be possible to make one so conservative that almost any setup can use it, but, it would be tough.

6

Give me two minutes.

7

For an 1/8" endmill, start at the work surface, 2x2mm passes @8mm/s and a full depth finishing pass.

Who wants to be the brave one and test it?!

Test logo.gcode (276.4 KB)

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8

Only 15 mins. Nice! What is the final depth?

9

4mm, just a simple logo using peel. So it should be fun to watch and low stress on the machine.

10

First!

20200118_215328
20200118_2153284032Ă—2268 1.45 MB

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11

I’m a noob. I have not pride, yet :wink:

I was having trouble cutting the crown test. I wanted some known good gcode to figure out if the problem was cutting code that was meant to be drawn or my setup.

It was my setup. Turns out set screws on the stepper shafts were loose.

All good now…

Crown%20Test%202
Crown%20Test%2024032Ă—1960 2.47 MB

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12

:astonished:

Yeah buddy!!!

13

Pulleys strike again…you are senior level v1 crew now!!!

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14

Looks like we have a solid test file!!!

I have one with arcs enabled wanna see if it is better or worse?Test logo ARCS ON.gcode (89.5 KB)

15

That looks like what I asked for. Be nice to have one for wood or acrylic. I’m going to run it on scrap acrylic and see what happens. What could go wrong?

Full depth finishing pass? Shouldn’t that be like 10 or 20 percent?

asks the noob who didn’t know what a finishing pass was a week ago.

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16

Full depth in Z but skims off just a hair in the X-Y direction. Going in one pass means it removes layer lines, if any (as long as your tool doesn’t have defects along its length). Shallow skim keeps the load low so you can get away with full depth in Z.

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17

This should work just about right for everything, with a single flute. I used the numbers from the milling basics page.

18

Here’s the video. Some chatter but otherwise pretty boring.

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19

How did you get the plywood to be so shiny? Looks great!

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Are you sure you want to start that?