My Mom asked me to cut new house numbers for her triplex. A couple of the old numbers got broken when she had the house painted last summer.
After a bit of negotiation, we agreed that it would be difficult for me to match the existing numbers, so I sent her some font samples, she picked one, and then I set up to cut out the numbers for all 3 units.
I think they came out pretty nice:
The cut helped me to work out some kinks in the system. Here are a few challenges I had to overcome.
First, The Y axis needs a new rail; the little extra bit at the end is not working. I found that out cutting the Super-pid case, so I moved the cut space to avoid that spot for the numbers cut.
Then, I really need to work on attaching the DB-9s in the motor connectors more securely. I ruined a bunch of wood when the Y axis motor kept coming loose. I decided, for now, to tape the connectors with painter’s tape.
Once I got that working again, the drive sprocket from the Y axis popped off; I need to get that fixed with Loctite (and I generally need to Loctite all the moving parts).
Once I got all the minor repairs done, I remembered the hard way that I need to work on hold-down screws — I lost one number and gouged a couple more before I fixed that problem.
The router is really starting to sound bad. I think it’s about to die. I’m saving up for a Porter Cable 890 anyway, but it just makes me think about how much cutting that tool has done. And maybe about whether I’m cooling it properly.
In addition to troubleshooting, I learned some stuff about my workflow.
First, “Engrave” in CamBam goes “on the line”, where “Profile” “leaves the line”, either to the inside or the outside. That’s cool. However, If you are using this to then cut all the way through the geometry (by Engraving to -0.75″), the toolpath does a “LevelFirst” cut (taking out all the 1/8″ stuff, then moving to do each letter at 1/4″, …) instead of a “DepthFirst” cut (cutting out each letter before moving to the next). This actually helped me when I decided to stop the machine after the 1/8″ pass to put in hold-down screws, but it would be nice to have the machine do that a little more automatically; I really had to chase the endmill.
Also, I used the SketchUp-to-CamBam plugin, and it works great! I think SketchUp is my new modeling tool. I spent some time working on the art for the Halloween decorations, and SketchUp made it really easy to trace an existing bitmap.
Finally, I am liking the vacuum shoe more and more. The bit still throws a little sawdust around, but most of the dust just sits on the table, waiting for me to come through and vacuum it up. I kind of want an additional hose (or to have a hose that sucks up the sawdust as it runs), but for now this is a big improvement over getting sawdust actively blown all over creation.
I really feel like I’m rolling with the CNC now. I have made a lot of progress on projects. If I could get the Super-PID installed, I think I’d feel pretty confident that the machine is going to cut about anything that I throw at it.