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Used Renishaw QC10 ballbar came in the mail today. Unfortunately delivery of the Fadal is likely two weeks out.  Time enough to get a phase converter and finish painting my garage at least.Cal date is 2021. Looks like I can buy a little platform of known length to recal the ballbar. Gonna do that if I cant find someone willing to loan theirs to me. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 22:06
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CarForumPoster posted:Relatedly to the Linux CNC path planning discussion, I wonder if there was some interpolation based on look ahead that caused the machine to calculate a trajectory point outside the soft limits. Oh hell yeah, I was just thinking about how to make watch faces. Doing some custom jobs with off the shelf movements has been on the to do list for like five years.
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Mar 14, 2024 22:49
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CarForumPoster posted:Cal date is 2021. Looks like I can buy a little platform of known length to recal the ballbar. Gonna do that if I cant find someone willing to loan theirs to me. Saying this without knowing your level of experience with ballbars: depending on how you plan to use it it might be best to buy the artifact anyway. If you want it to catch scaling errors (i.e., you told it to interpolate a perfect 100 mm circle but it actually did a perfect 100.05 mm circle) then, at minimum, you're supposed to recheck it every time you swap the extensions to set the length origin, and preferably before every measurement. At least with the QC20W, the software yells at you if you don't check every time! Without that step it can still measure all the cool stuff like axis perpendicularity/straightness, reversal errors, cyclic ballscrew errors, scaling differences between X and Y, etc. Really everything besides "how big is the circle". So if you've got other ways of checking scaling then whatever, but if the ballbar is your primary method of checking machine geometry and/or you're going to be swapping extensions a lot it might be best to buy the artifact to have on hand. Sucks that the artifacts are so expensive, though. Zerodur ain't cheap! EDIT: I guess you could also make your own. Get some stable material, put a few ballbearings in the right positions to make your own kinematic mount at the appropriate distances, measure the distances between them (CMM or using the ballbar to compare to a brand-name one) and you're good to go. Won't be as dimensionally stable as the Renishaw artifact but depending on your tolerances and how good your temperature stability is it might be good enough. Karia fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Mar 14, 2024 |
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Mar 14, 2024 23:49
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CarForumPoster posted:Relatedly to the Linux CNC path planning discussion, I wonder if there was some interpolation based on look ahead that caused the machine to calculate a trajectory point outside the soft limits. The tip of the engrave tool is doing 0 SFM anyway, may as well save electricity by having the spindle off.
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Mar 15, 2024 01:00
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Karia posted:Saying this without knowing your level of experience with ballbars: depending on how you plan to use it it might be best to buy the artifact anyway. If you want it to catch scaling errors (i.e., you told it to interpolate a perfect 100 mm circle but it actually did a perfect 100.05 mm circle) then, at minimum, you're supposed to recheck it every time you swap the extensions to set the length origin, and preferably before every measurement. At least with the QC20W, the software yells at you if you don't check every time! Without that step it can still measure all the cool stuff like axis perpendicularity/straightness, reversal errors, cyclic ballscrew errors, scaling differences between X and Y, etc. Really everything besides "how big is the circle". Never used one before only seen them in YouTubes I’d be taking the measurements in a +/-10*F garage, so an 8” steel bar could change by about .0011” between winter and hot summer, a fairly significant change. That said, the tools are stored inside at 70-75*F so only .0002” delta. Steel would probably be fine and I have it on hand. Graphite is 40% lower CTE and also fairly cheap a 6” bar is $33 at granger.
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Mar 15, 2024 14:35
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I now suspect that the issue I was having with my GRBL-controlled laser was a cheap USB cable randomly and occasionally dropping out/sending crap to the controller. I replaced the cable with a different one today and ran about 45 minutes worth of cutting with it without issues (at least no communication issues, I managed to screw a few things up myself though). I made a step stool which smells absolutely disgusting, laser cutting plywood kinda sucks tbh. 
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Mar 18, 2024 05:36
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Blackhawk posted:I now suspect that the issue I was having with my GRBL-controlled laser was a cheap USB cable randomly and occasionally dropping out/sending crap to the controller. I replaced the cable with a different one today and ran about 45 minutes worth of cutting with it without issues (at least no communication issues, I managed to screw a few things up myself though). Nice! How many passes does it take for whatever thickness that is to get cut all the way through? Also, how powerful is the laser you're using?
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Mar 18, 2024 14:23
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hark posted:Nice! How many passes does it take for whatever thickness that is to get cut all the way through? Also, how powerful is the laser you're using? 9mm thick plywood, 40W diode laser, 8mm/sec at 80% power and two passes. Annoyingly the first pass makes it ~75% of the way through the wood but a full second pass is required to reliably cut all the way through and even then there are occasionally areas of the veneer on the back face barely holding on. The plywood sheets are quite warped so there's several mm difference between the focus at the edges and the middle sometimes which probably has an effect on reliably cutting through as well. I also need a bigger compressor because the one I have is running constantly during the cut and after 30+ minutes of cutting it's getting very toasty.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:00
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Blackhawk posted:I also need a bigger compressor because the one I have is running constantly during the cut and after 30+ minutes of cutting it's getting very toasty. https://www.californiaairtools.com/ I cannot recommend these enough. Super quiet, basically a 100% duty cycle, and oil-less so you never need to deal with blow-by or changing gross compressor oil.
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Mar 18, 2024 21:20
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If you're cutting thick materials in multiple passes on a laser it's 100% worth moving the focus down for the second pass, sometimes I'll focus on the top surface, drop it 1/4 of the material thickness, then drop it another 1/2 thickness for the second pass.
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Mar 19, 2024 00:45
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Blackhawk posted:I now suspect that the issue I was having with my GRBL-controlled laser was a cheap USB cable randomly and occasionally dropping out/sending crap to the controller. I replaced the cable with a different one today and ran about 45 minutes worth of cutting with it without issues (at least no communication issues, I managed to screw a few things up myself though). You might already know this but not all plywood is equal when it comes to lasering - the construction yard stuff cuts worse than ‘better’ quality ply of the same thickness. Check your Lens and I bet it’s covered with yellow schmoo. I’d have expected a 40w to do that in one pass, https://lasertree.com/pages/laser-module-cutting-data certainly suggests it should but that’s running at nearly half you mm/m which tracks I guess. The nicer grade ply also smells better imo, maybe it’s the lack of formaldehyde
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Mar 20, 2024 09:37
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Rapulum_Dei posted:You might already know this but not all plywood is equal when it comes to lasering - the construction yard stuff cuts worse than ‘better’ quality ply of the same thickness. Check your Lens and I bet it’s covered with yellow schmoo. I’d have expected a 40w to do that in one pass, https://lasertree.com/pages/laser-module-cutting-data certainly suggests it should but that’s running at nearly half you mm/m which tracks I guess. I didn't know this...what is the good/best plywood locally available in most US cities for laser cutting?
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Mar 21, 2024 01:52
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those numbers seem uhhh optimistic for a 40w what's going to be 'locally available in most US cities' is going to be whatever they sell at Home Depot or Lowes, neither of which sell anything especially good but this stuff has produced the cleanest cuts of the options there in my area, when I really have to get a sheet of something 3/16"ish at 7PM every so often though they throw some kind of thread in the middle that CO2 lasers won't cut so you've got to manually trim them out like they're tabs A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 03:02
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:those numbers seem uhhh optimistic for a 40w What plywood do you typically/prefer to use? Where do you get it? CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 03:58
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:those numbers seem uhhh optimistic for a 40w I'm using that brand of 40W laser and I'm cutting 9mm plywood at 80% power in two passes at about twice the speed they say it should cut 8mm plywood in a single pass at 100% power, so that number at least seems reasonable, can't talk to the other ones though. I'm cutting synthetic fabric (at least black stuff) at about 150mm/sec and 80% power which is what the laser was really built for. The plywood I'm using is just dodgy hardware store grade, I think it's paper-thin okoume veneer over a poplar core, but you can see it's full of voids and weird lumps that result in the laser not entirely cutting through without some trimming in places. It's also quite warped over a large sheet, so the focus could shift by up to 3mm across a sheet which I'm sure makes a difference to cutting efficiency.
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Mar 21, 2024 07:39
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CarForumPoster posted:I didn't know this...what is the good/best plywood locally available in most US cities for laser cutting? The bad news is - it’s the more expensive stuff, Baltic birch and the like. And I mean ‘WHAT?’ prices. Laser safe, formaldehyde free, furniture grade all seem to have a $$$ value I’m afraid.
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Mar 21, 2024 08:27
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CarForumPoster posted:What plywood do you typically/prefer to use? Where do you get it? When I've got the money I get a pallet of something poplar-cored from Chesapeake Plywoods. cut quality depends mostly on what the veneer and core plys are made out of and how consistent they are inside where the cheapo manufacturers like to leave a lot of voids or random garbage: poplar cuts phenomenally, birch is good but BB is more or less unattainable now, most MDF is ok for non-structural applications, luan and white pine will occasionally just start a barbecue on your bed
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Mar 21, 2024 17:12
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What's the thread recommendation for vector design software? Looking to re-learn something more seriously after not really having touched illustrator for years and years. -Initially looking to design for a laser cutter, but I'm also in the process of building a CNC machine, and have a ton of 3d printers. -Idealy free or cheap. Not looking for a recurring monthly fee, ideally not looking to pirate -Dont want to corner myself into a weird app with no room to grow if I get better at it or more professional -Im also trying to pick up cad/3d- design so anything that interacts with that end of things would be great
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Mar 21, 2024 18:01
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Inkscape is fine and free and good Or, possibly, you could just do your sketches directly in Fusion 360 and export them from there
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Mar 21, 2024 18:07
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Inkscape is great for free and has features even the paid stuff doesn't. Affinity Designer was on sale for $50 last week so I picked that up to replace my  copy of Illustrator.
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Mar 21, 2024 18:14
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Sockser posted:Inkscape is fine and free and good This. I'd add that you might as well just make everything in 3D. It helps you visualize stuff better plus I constantly find myself using some 3D offset, location, geometry, etc. to project onto another part event when the actual parts are gonna be 2 axis parts. Making a 3D rep nearly always saves time in the long run.
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Mar 21, 2024 19:50
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inkscape is fine and free at least. it's good at vectorizing bitmaps for export into some better program? If you're looking to do parts design or anything like that where any degree of precision is important to you, Solvespace is a decent entry-level parametric modeler albeit slightly awkward to pick up, qCAD is non-parametric but great for cleaning up designs and tremendously more capable as 2D CAD software than inkscape illustrator etc., or if you're already good at it and invested in the environment sure why not Fusion can also do 2D. Overlap with what's useful for 3D printing or doing anything especially sophisticated with a CNC machine is going to be minimal, that's going to pretty much saddle you with Fusion (until they finish removing all the useful functionality) or Blender (extremely flexible and unlikely to spring any nasty surprises on you, provided you're a FOSS cenobite who loves pain) A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 21:58
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:inkscape is fine and free at least. it's good at vectorizing bitmaps for export into some better program? If you're a python does Inkscape is also fairly approachable to tie into. This give you access to things like Hershey text: https://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/Hershey_Text for when you want to send your whole family ChatGPT generated xmas cards but gently caress writing it hurts my hand.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:16
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Onshape has a pretty good free tier and the Solidworks for makers program is now like $50/year for what seems to be a fully professional install? Its what I've ended up with having used SW professionally for a decade and it being pretty dang cheap for what it is.
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Mar 21, 2024 23:22
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did dassault take out that DRM thing that freaks out and fucks up solidworks if its internet connection is interrupted for even an instant cause if so I'd switch right back to that in a heartbeat
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Mar 21, 2024 23:28
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:Onshape has a pretty good free tier and the Solidworks for makers program is now like $50/year for what seems to be a fully professional install? Its what I've ended up with having used SW professionally for a decade and it being pretty dang cheap for what it is. Not yet available in New Zealand but otherwise looks good. I've heard that the latest version of Solidworks has been insanely ruined by Dassault though (see above post) which is disappointing.
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Mar 22, 2024 04:50
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Blackhawk posted:Not yet available in New Zealand but otherwise looks good. I've heard that the latest version of Solidworks has been insanely ruined by Dassault though (see above post) which is disappointing. This is going to be a lot of fun when corporate moves us to 2024, then  Also I thought Solidworks for Makers ended and you get something like TinkerCAD now through 3D EXPERIENCE or whatever?
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Mar 22, 2024 15:25
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I really gotta get back into cracking software...
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Mar 22, 2024 16:08
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There's two forks of Solidworks nowadays. The cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE version, which is terrible, and the Desktop version, which is not. Dassault is trying to convince people to go to the cloud-based solution, but they do have the Student edition https://www.solidworks.com/product/students available for Desktop as well at either $99/year or $49/year, depending on if you hit one of their sales. Desktop Student edition is basically indistinguishable from the Desktop Premium edition except for some watermarks it adds to your drawings. I find it a lot more pleasant to use than Fusion360, although that might be because I am just more used to it after a decade of time invested in Solidworks.
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Mar 22, 2024 16:31
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It's SolidWorks Connected. If it was just something super basic, I would have ditched it right away. AFAIK the only big change was pushing the annual over monthly by dropping it way down and pumping the monthly way up.
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Mar 22, 2024 16:32
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Yeah the makers version I have still runs as a desktop install that's indistinguishable from the professional license on my work laptop. Idk about the drm, I have spotty Internet at times and have never had it drop. The worst part is the online launcher is in some obscure corner of their website and god help you if you lose your bookmark for it.
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Mar 22, 2024 23:24
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The rigging company for my Fadal 4020 VMC showed up, decided it was too hard to get the forklifts on and off their truck on a dirt road -> left. Complete waste of the day. They did this despite the fact that 3 other heavier machines have been moved out of this exact same location in the past year. Every other rigging company ghosted me. This SUCKS. I've decided I'm gonna DIY. Toe jacks and machine skates here I come. EDIT: I'm so so loving disappointed. Today was supposed to be NEW MACHINE DAY and instead its toe jack day CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 28, 2024 |
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Mar 28, 2024 16:50
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drat that sucks, every time I've had something moved by riggers we've done a full pre-move walkthrough to verify access, clearances, parking, etc. They've usually ended up bringing steel plate to set on the gravel parts of the lot and across transitions so theres no issues with the forklift getting stuck or anything. Where is the machine now? Did they drop it on your property and gently caress off?
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Mar 28, 2024 18:49
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:drat that sucks, every time I've had something moved by riggers we've done a full pre-move walkthrough to verify access, clearances, parking, etc. They've usually ended up bringing steel plate to set on the gravel parts of the lot and across transitions so theres no issues with the forklift getting stuck or anything. They didnt even pick it up! And that option was available to them, plus I encouraged them to look at the road on google maps. And they had steel sheets to set down. They even set them down! This rigger was a straight dumbass and tried to back into a driveway with a semi on a dirt road. The wheels started to spin because of course the road was too narrow to execute this. It was never a good idea. The actual answer, as three separate people told him before he got stuck, was to drop the steel plates they had into the dirt and effectively extend the driveway. He called his boss who heard that he got stuck and told them not to do it. Absolute incompetence from start to finish. Two other rigging companies were able to divine this very obvious fact. Trevor was not having it though and hosed off once he called his boss. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Mar 28, 2024 |
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Mar 28, 2024 18:58
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Dang I’m sad I missed CAD conversation. If your 3DX SOLIDWORKS Makers software is goofing up, they have a 30 day at a time offline mode that works great. I’ve been daily driving it connected on the professional side and it is a *substantially* better product than even a year ago. Affinity Designer also just got export to DXF, which whips. I have zero problems, but I also don’t do bitmap tracing. CNC machine update: Still gotta replace boob light in the room that will interfere with the enclosure. Travel for work and expensive things keep happening, so the MR-1: Beans, Beans, Beans, Build is on the back burner for a bit. NewFatMike fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 28, 2024 |
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Mar 28, 2024 19:24
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CarForumPoster posted:They didnt even pick it up! And that option was available to them, plus I encouraged them to look at the road on google maps. And they had steel sheets to set down. They even set them down! This rigger was a straight dumbass and tried to back into a driveway with a semi on a dirt road. The wheels started to spin because of course the road was too narrow to execute this. It was never a good idea. The actual answer, as three separate people told him before he got stuck, was to drop the steel plates they had into the dirt and effectively extend the driveway. He called his boss who heard that he got stuck and told them not to do it. Absolute incompetence from start to finish. Aw gently caress that sucks, so they bailed on picking it up? I guess thats better than them bailing on dropping it off as your machine is then stuck at their facility and you'd have to deal with that. And yeah idk why you wouldnt drop the fork and plates, park the semi out of the way, then bring it back when you're ready to put it on the truck.
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Mar 28, 2024 19:33
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Is anyone familiar with Estlcam? I've got a new CNC router on the way to play with (Sainsmart/Genmitsu 4040-Pro), and I'm trying to find some carving software that doesn't cost a billion dollars to buy or rent monthly. Why is all of this stuff so expensive? I just want to make a stupid little Han in Carbonite or something. I don't remember having this much trouble back when I had the X-Carve... oh, right, that was before Inventables decided that Easel was going to be their cash cow. 
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Mar 28, 2024 23:35
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I don’t know Estlcam but have generally heard positive things. Fusion is free and good and has a post for your machine. If you’re working from an STL, your only option may be MeshCAM which isn’t crazy expensive but still a cost.
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Mar 28, 2024 23:59
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Well don't I feel foolish. I didn't realize that the free version of Fusion had any CAM functionality at all, genuinely thought that was a paid-only feature. That'll definitely be worth looking at! I really don't mind paying a "fair" price (and I know that's completely subjective) for something decent, but I hate software subscriptions with a passion and I still can't believe that Vectric gets what they do for their programs. I use VCarve at work sometimes, it's really not that great LOL I'll look into MeshCAM as well. I can work around file formats, but STL seems as common in carving as it is in 3D printing. Thanks for the tips! 
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Mar 29, 2024 00:10
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Estlcam has a fully functioning free install mode, after a while on startup you get a box you have to dismiss with an increasing delay time but it’s enough to see if you like it enough to pay the pretty reasonable licence fee. For 3D carving in estlcam you just import an stl and set a few options. It’s basic but it works.
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Mar 29, 2024 07:09
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