Carbide 3d Gcode Export
Analisa Wisdom
Can you please add a 3rd tier of license (Free, Shapeoko Owner, Pro) that enables gcode export for people that have purchased a Carbide3D machine? Doing so continues to allow you to limit the use of the free version for other machines without alienating your otherwise happy customers.
I'm very new to Fusion 360 and the Shapeoko CNC and am attempting my first 3d project. I created a design using Fusion 360, generated the gcode and I'm using Carbide Motion as the gcode sender. The issue I'm running into is the CNC is not starting at the home position I set using the xyz touch probe, but rather moving to the front most extent on the Y- axis and beginning to cut where there is no material.
When creating the gcode through fusion I used the default Carbide3D config, I've also tried a user posted ShapeOKO config and have the same issue. I've tried moving the component to origin in fusion, selecting the material body under the Manufacture Setup for the toolpaths, nothing seems to work. It seems like I need to tell the machine to use the CNC probed position as the material start position but I'm unsure how to do so, or why that wouldn't be handled by post processing with the carbide3D config.
The box was handmade, but I had purchased a 3d printed plate to hold the switches. A little later I had the idea of making my own plate with wood. Initial tests, chiseling out a square hole for a single switch worked pretty well, but as soon as I tried to cut out several adjacent holes, the wood between the holes kept chipping out.
One is Inventables Easel. This is a web app made for the Inventables X-Carve cnc machine. But it can export gcode that can be used with the 3018. Easel has some decent features for free, but you have to pay for full functionality.
If you want to really go crazy, you can get into 3d modeling with something like FreeCAD or Fusion360, and then create tool paths from those models. A much bigger learning curve and probably overkill until you get into some really complex stuff.
Before you can start your design, you must know the size and thickness of your material. This is necessary for generating successful toolpaths. Your design should also take into account the material type. Machining different materials will result in different feeds and speeds that will be determined in the CAM software.
Design, CAM, and Machine Interface software are all used to create the final file for your project. Detailed information about software and the CNC tool chain can be found here. -software-explained/. In the following explaination, Carbide Create and gSender will be used for the Design/CAM and Machine Interface software examples.
A design is needed to create the toolpath. You can use a pre-made design or create one yourself. CAD software like Fusion 360 & Sketchup are useful for creating 3D files with complex shapes. Graphic programs like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape are perfect to create files for signs and simple 2.5D carvings.
Select the vector lines you want to machine then select the CNC bit. Change any parameters such as feed and speeds for your machine and material. Information on feeds and speeds can be found here. -feeds-and-speeds/ The cam software will calculate the toolpath. In the example below, the design is in orange, and the toolpaths are blue. Once you are happy with the design, export the gcode.
Clamping material to the work surface is necessary for a successful part. Clamping methods are determined by the design and material you are using. Below are common examples of clamping methods. Small items could be held in a vice with some care. Clamps can be made out of metal, plastic, or wood.
Hold down clamps hold the material tightly to the work surface. Top clamping is perfect when using upcut bits. Careful consideration must be given to the placement of the clamps in order to prevent the bit from cutting into them.
Holding your workpiece with pressure from the sides is useful for flattening the top of a workpiece or doing 3d reliefs where the design extends to the edges. Eccentric clamps or angled blocks pressed against material work well.
Tape is applied to the back of the workpiece and to the top of the worksurface. Apply fast-acting glue to the work surface and place the workpiece on top with pressure until set. Once finished, remove the tape. Hot gluing your material to the table is also an effective way to hold the piece down when doing light machining.
To loosen the collet nut, place the small wrench onto the router shaft on the left side. Place the large wrench on the collet nut on the right side. Squeeze the wrenches together till the collet nut is loosened.
Always make sure the collet, the adapter, and the nut are free from debris before running. Dust buildup will prevent the collet from being tightened correctly and can ruin a workpiece. Dust can build in the inside corners of the nut and will prevent proper tension. Clean with a small tool or compressed air.
When installing the bits into the router, always tighten using the wrenches. The router can be damaged using the button and wrench when tightening. Loose bits can be tricky. Hold the bit in place with one finger. Press the red button with your thumb to lock the shaft in place. With the other hand finger tighten the collet nut till the bit can be held on its own. Use both wrenches to tighten firmly.
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To tighten the collet nut, the small wrench is on the right side of the router shaft. Place the large wrench on the collet nut on the left side. Squeeze together until the nut is tight, do not over tighten.
Automatic zeroing or probing works by touching a conductive plate with your cnc bit to find the coordinates on the workpiece. The touchplate can find a single axis per probe or multiple axes. Our auto-touch plate allows you to use v-bits for automatic probing. -touch-plate/#autozero-touch-plate
To find the XYZ axes, place the touch plate on a corner of the material and perform the XYZ probe operation. The router will automatically move through all three axes. It will touch on the top and two sides to accurately find the corner. Detailed information can be found here -using-gsender/#probing
If you have limit switches installed, you might encounter an Alarm 2 message. Your material is too close to the sensors for the machine to travel safely. Move your material away from the sensors and begin your probe operation.
When a job has been started, gSender will shoe a feed adjustment control panel beside the machining time. Clicking on the plus or minus button will adjust the feed rate faster and slower. The chart below shows what each of the buttons do.
This method will also work for g-code sending programs that do not have tool changing functionality, the difference with this one is that all the toolpaths will be in one file. The instructions below are written in millimetre values, however you can replace the values to be in inches as long as the g-code was generated using inches.
Depending on your project, getting into the crevices of your design can be difficult. Small scrapers are handy to remove fuzzy bits. Cone Sanders are useful for larger designs. What if you carved a 3d relief? Sanding mops in different grits work great here. They can get into the details without removing too much material and ruining the design.
There are a few ways to add colour to your work piece. Wood stains help enhance the grain of the wood and should be finished with a good sealer
Multi-Colour painting can really make a sign pop. Use a masking film
To protect the surface and details of your project, a finishing product such as wax, lacquer, varnish, or epoxy can be used. On projects such as a cutting board or serving tray that may encounter water, or be used in direct contact with food, the appropriate food-safe finish should be used to seal your project.
One obvious goal of making a RepRap replicatable is getting it to make it's own PCBs or other electronic circuitries.PCB milling is one of the more promising ways of Automated Circuitry Making.Recent firmwares understand a pretty standard flavour of GCode, opening the door to a lot of toolpaths already existing. This page describes a few promising ones.
Researchers have already milled out functional PCBs on the WolfStrap. Generation 7 Electronics boards are made this way regularly. To give an idea about achievable resolution, minimum isolation path width on a WolfStrap is about 0.4 mm. Not sufficient for typical SMD parts, but well working for 0.1" (2.54 mm) spaced IC pins. With higher precision machines one can achieve higher precision results, of course.
While a gazillion of softwares for creating and manufacturing circuits and PCBs exists, it was surprisingly difficult to find a working combination. As RepRap is open source, we want also to use open source tools for designing RepRap stuff, of course.
gEDA is a software suite with schematic and PCB layout editor. While it looks a bit antiquated and made for experts only at the first glance, the major lack of this suite is an up to date tutorial. It appears to be the most reliable and powerful open source choice, easily on par with Eagle.
The version currently coming with Debian/Ubuntu by default is pretty old. To get the latest features, which also includes a lot of improvements on the G-code exporter, you can either subscribe to Eugene's weekly builds:
Once you're in this tool, use it to open the other parts of the project. If you changed something in the schematic, save it and return to xgsch2pcb. Then use this tool's button to open the PCB. It will automatically offer to update the PCB. If you have used Eagle or KiCad before, that's pretty intuitive.
While Eagle is a proprietary and closed source tool; an almost full functional, free evaluation version exists. The only limitation of the free version is the maximum size of the resulting PCBs (100x80mm, 2 layers). Eagle is widely used among hobbyists and currently most RepRap designs are made with it, too.
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