To all the Yoda’s of XCarve out there I could use a little input on making sure I’m looking at my machine correctly.
I’ve done just about every physical upgrade I can think of on the machine itself. I’m seriously considering moving away from the stock Audrino and GRBL and going to a more robust motion control solution but that is another topic.
I have done all my work in wood until now and while accuracy was important to me it wasn’t that important. I figured I would get to know the machine by using and move on from there. I recently was approached to do a commission for someone in the film industry out of Aluminum.
The person wants to make a prototype of a tool he has come up with. He already has a real Machining Company on board to do the actual run but he would like to do a couple of test pieces first before he does the final run due to the cost of the Machinist doing a one off.
Well of coarse I said awesome send me over the file to cut out before really thinking about it, I’m a guy right? Thing of it is this is a actual tool, think those cool little tools that look like credit cards for bikes to be used on really expensive Film Cameras requiring a level of accuracy I’ve not really had to deal with before now.
So I spent an evening a few days ago going though all of the tune up steps I could think of-
Belts all tight and equal- check
Machine is square- check
Wheels tight but not to tight- check
Phases of Earth/ Moon alignment- check
The way I use to check my accuracy is with a dial indicator on a mag base held down to the table. I even recorded a short vid and I’ll include a link Checking accuracy on my C-Carve - YouTube
here.
So the question is am I doing it right or am I missing something? I would really hat to start milling an expensive piece of aluminum without being reasonably certain I could get accuracy beforehand.