Assembly and First Carves

X-Carve
1

So i spent about 2 months looking the x-carve over, reading the forums here, watching multitudes of videos, getting excited every time i watch one or see some of the work people were turning out. So i jumped in and ordered mine. I got it last Friday and then the fun began on Saturday. I first started by building a new roll around bench for this massive 1000mm x 1000mm unit. Once that was done the real enjoyment began.

Saturday evening me and my wife (yes you read that correct) started building this thing together. And boy did we both have fun. I honestly have not enjoyed spending time with my wife like i did this past week. Worked on the entire unit with a single argument and had a lot of laughs when someone else got something backwards.

But let me get to the meat of this dinner plate. The build was simple and didn’t take much time. We spent a few hours each evening working on it and had it up and running by Monday night doing our first carves.

There were a few instructions that I thought could have been switched around but none the less they were easy and simple to follow and well thought out. The posted videos with the instructions where a big help as we watched them when we didn’t exactly understand the written section.

Now lets go to the customer service. Absolutely impeccable!!. I had an issue with the slide on the gantry (excuse me as i still haven’t nailed down all the technical terms for the parts LOL) and one of the motors. 2 screws did not sit flush and I did not notice it till i tried to mount the motor over them and then SNAP!! There goes one of the mount on the motor. I emailed customer server and explained exactly what happened. This was partially my fault for not paying attention. But Jeff at Inflatables said no issue or problem at all. He sent me out a new motor and i had it with in a day!! A day people. Excellent service in my book…

Now onto the carves. This is where it gets kind of funny. I followed all the steps. my wife watched with anticipation and when we got to that magical screen that said CARVE, oh boy. i got giddy and pressed the button. Now that said. after reading how setups from other folks went south and things broke we had a little worry in our minds and when i pressed the carve button we both stepped back about 5 feet and waited for the bits pieces to go flying LOL. Low and behold, it worked like a champ!! no issues, everything did what ti was supposed to do.

Oh and why did i get it? a couple of reasons. I wanted to be the cool kid on the block (more neighbors over at my house then i have ever had) to do props and my PCBs.

Here are a couple of pics. One of the initial carve and one of the second carve.

Pic1.jpg1280×720 226 KB

Pic2.jpg1280×720 170 KB

6 Likes
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Congratulations and welcome!

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I remember that first carve, and stepping back 5 feet :slight_smile: Reminded me of the scene in the elevator from Ghostbusters.

Of course, as soon as nothing exploded I had my face as close to the carve as possible like a kid in a candy store.

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Congratulations! It is unusual for that first carve to be as nice and crisp as yours. You did a great job putting it all together.

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Congrats I just received my kit on Monday, and so far work has kept from building more than just the Carriage and X/Y plates. Really looking foreword to having it completed. What bit sizes have you tried I picked up the sampler as well and there is vast size difference between the two that we sent with system and the 5 in the sampler, one of them is very tiny (must be for detail work). Really excited to get started, I plan on making custom table top game boards and accessories. Good luck with the PCB’s that is way out of my wheel house but have been interested to see how well it works.

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i got one of the end mill starter kits. To do the first 2 carves I was using the smallest bit in the kit which was 1/16th i think. My wife wants to make a sign so this weekend ill be moving to a bigger bit to try.

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Thanks. Yea I cheated and was doing a little sanding while it carved to get the little burrs off LOL

1 Like
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Just getting straight lines and a consistent Z depth is a real milestone for the machine.

9

Nice!!
Mines actually on the ups truck today, waiting to be delivered.
Don’t think I’ll be building it with my wife though… Lol
:sunglasses:

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Nice, I know when mine was on the truck and being delivered all i did all day at work was track it. I must have looked at it once every 15 minutes LOL. what was cool is it was delivered right after i got home so it didn’t have to sit all alone on the porch with no one to love it hahhaah.

Definitely build up the waste board and the frame underneath first and square it up. You will not only give yourself a work surface for all the parts but save your self some time later on with mounting everything else and not having to clear off all the parts. If i remember correctly, there should be about 1 1/8 inch of maker rail on each side of the wasteboard on the rails that go in the front and back that the Y axis mounts to. If you bought the limit switch kit. when your building the gantry skip a few steps and heartache and put the limit switch stops in before completing the gantry.

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