My new Shapeoko 3 is it just me?

[Rocket]

I will work on everything you spoke of.

I am starting to believe my Shapeoko is not a very powerful mill.

I did 4 passes at feed of 10, I was afraid of damaging the unit...
I have a Dewalt 611 router (one of the best...I thought?)

Tell me, what brand of CNC machine do you use?  How much does it cost?

I may try and return this machine, they mislead me, in the beginning...

R

[DanL]

Big boy machines $0000

[Rocket]

Rocket:

How are your parts clamped or otherwise secured when you are machining?  It sure looks like something is moving by your photos.

Also, are you using sharp cutters capable of proper chip removal?  Instead of an 0.0625 end mill, try to cut a larger gear using a 0.125 or 0.1875 sharp straight two flute bit and see what happens.

Mark

The board is securely fastened down with clamps, it did not move.
The end mill is new and sharp.

I will try your idea....

What type of machine do you have?

Thanks.........RR

[ArtF]

Mine is from China, but made of cast iron and steel gantry. Dont
think they sell them anymore. I paid 4,000 Can. at the time.

  If its just power, and the machine seems solid, you could look at updating the
motors and electronics, that wil up your power by orders of magnitude, and I notice
your getting 4 microsteps, thats pretty bad, I wouldnt run a stepper on less then 10
microsteps. Stepper motors, when micro stepping are smoother and more capable of speed
the higher the micro-stepper division. I haven't seen the machine of course, but it actually
doesn't look all that bad mechanically, looks like it could handle much more power, but only
you can judge if its flimsy or not.

  To see what a great many are using these days, go to ebay and type 6040 cnc , thats the
standard chinese router these days. Quite economical if you buy one without motors and such
and wire it up, not a bad deal fully equipped either. I consider them a quite reasonable
machine to learn CNC and they are reviewed well.From what Ive heard, any shortcomings can
be modified or dealt with over time as one grows. I just read some Shapeoko reviews, many claim
its pretty sturdy, so an upgrade of the electronics may be more economical.

  The Sapeoko and the 6040 seem to be discussed in forums as being competing level
machines, so its hard to know exactly what to think as many of the 6040 users get
pretty good results.

  Keep playing, its one of those things where you get incrementally better fast..

Art


 





 

[ArtF]

One other thing.. I did find a post that says

"cutting at no more than .05″ depth at a time is advisable " on that machine.
No way of telling if thats true or not, such is the nature of the web, but if so,
it might explain your trouble cutting .125 at a time.

  Seems low to me..

Art

[marklazarz]

Rocket:

How are your parts clamped or otherwise secured when you are machining?  It sure looks like something is moving by your photos.

Also, are you using sharp cutters capable of proper chip removal?  Instead of an 0.0625 end mill, try to cut a larger gear using a 0.125 or 0.1875 sharp straight two flute bit and see what happens.

Mark

The board is securely fastened down with clamps, it did not move.
The end mill is new and sharp.

I will try your idea....

What type of machine do you have?

Thanks.........RR

I purchased a Pilot Pro 2626 kit from PDJ, Inc. and built it from the ground up including the control panel.  Incidentally, we are about the same age and I didn't know squat about CNC machines either.  Building it and wiring the components was a struggle but I'm glad I went through the process because I now have a very good understanding of how everything works. The manufacturer was patient with me during numerous phone conversations so that validated my choice of vendors.  I then struggled with learning Mach3, particularly motor tuning.  Those damn stepper motors are like temperamental little kids - if you don't feed them what they want, they whine and throw tantrums.  Granted, I'm no expert like so many visitors to this forum but I have managed to make a few nice things with the CNC and I learn something new with each project.  I use Vectric's V-Carve Pro for CAD and I'm extremely happy with my choice.  It is expensive but worth every penny.  They generate tool paths for hundreds of post processors so I looked for Shapeoko but couldn't find it in the list so I have to believe it is fairly proprietary.

I chronicled my CNC build on my website blog http://markswoodchips.com/cnc-router/.html.  If you poke around on my website, you will find examples of projects that I completed using the machine.

Hang in there, the journey is as fun as the destination, even though the road is rocky at times.

Mark

[ArtF]

Mark:

  Very impressive. All parts available on Ebay I note. Your dedication to detail
is a lesson for everyone, ( including myself, Im generally a pig), and you really
must be happy with the results. Truly a separation from hobbiest to craftsman.
( Im definitely more hobbiest, and your certainly more craftsman. )

Thx for the link, I really recommend it to anyone thinking of building a system ,
you probably paid less than many pay for an underpowered system, and since
Ive previously seen your results, I know how well it performs. While my laser is
probably very competative with your current system, it took me years to learn
to pay attention to that kind of detail. Awesome Job.

My hat tips in your direction.

Art

[marklazarz]

Thank you Art for your kind comments.  I don't want to stray too far from the topic at hand but I'm going through another baffling problem.  Maybe I'll start a new discussion on my findings.  It has to do with motor couplings and their effect on vibration dampening.  Like I said to Rocket, stepper motors have their own personalities - that's where I am on my journey.

[ArtF]

  Steppers definitely do have personalities matched to the machines they drive. My router is a stepper machine as is my Emco
lathe, my laser is servo. I prefer servos , but steppers work my router well. What kind of baffling trouble are we speaking of? :)

Art


 

[Richard Cullin]

rocket
in your rush to get it going did you check that the motor current limits on the drivers were properly set ?
if the current is too low you will never get any decent performance .if its too high everything gets too hot and the drivers shut down til they cool and then resume [can look like your results]. on my 3d printed I placed a fan over the drivers to stop the shutdowns.
you should be some info there about motor tuning somewhere

[Rocket]

Art,

Here is a gear from Gearotic.  Attached g code file.

Carbide motion is ignoring the safe Z code.  It will
not lift spindle when moving to start of job.

Any ideas?
Rocket...

[marklazarz]

Art:

I don't want to step on Rocket's discussion here.  In short, my problem (I think) lies in too stiff of couplings, spider couplings with hard elastomers, resulting in occasional racking on a dual Y axis drive system.  As soon as they arrive, I will replace the spiders with helical couplings which are far more forgiving with slight mis-alignments plus they will add a little dampening.  My machine is so tight that I speculate harmonic vibrations are playing a roll in the steppers getting out of phase.  If not, we're down to the control panel itself.

[ArtF]

Rocket:

    The G20 should by rights appear before the initial move, Ill look in my code to see whats up with that, it woudlnt be noticed by many,
only by someone in metric mode switching temporarily to imperial. It may explain the line. Its moving to 5mm,5mm, then switching
to imperial and driving to the new location. Move the G20 to the first line. See what that does. Ill fix this in the output code.

Thx
Art

[ArtF]

Mark:

I just added a new baord called "General CNC Machine questions. ", feel free to post any generic questions on machine
mechanics or builds there, Im sure many are happy to help if any symptoms ring a bell. :)

Art

[ArtF]

Rocket:

  In your options ( small gear on top in main screen), youll find a button for editing prolog and epilog
code, this is the code put out first ( Prolog ) and at end of file, (epilog). Set a prolog of

G20

, if you use Gearotic for imperial code. You never have to add it then, and it will always be the first call,
probably fixing your line through the material, it seems the Shapeoko is default metric, so needs the G20
before that initial move.

Good luck
Art