X-carve assembly finished on Christmas

X-Carve Assembly
1

I’ve been taking it slow over the course of this month, and finally got my first cut made today. Kudo’s to Inventables for their instructions and parts packaging: The whole thing went off without a hitch. I built a 3d printer earlier this year, and this was far easier :smile:
What a great Christmas present to myself :wink:

Detailed thoughts on the matter are on my blog:

Really only one question right now (and maybe this should go in the Easel part of the forum?):

Can you manually jog the steppers in Easel? I see you can jog them when you go to home the toolhead at the start of a cut, and when you do the initial machine setup… but how can you manually control them when not in either of those modes? Just a ‘general jogging’? In the 3d printing world (dang similar) most print software gives you the ability to drive around the toolhead before the print starts at your leisure. I figured Easel would do this too, but I just can’t seem to find it. Basically, I’m realizing I need to move the toolhead out of the way so I can affix my material to the wasteboard before a new, since it just ‘stays in place’ once a cut finishes.

Happy Holidays everyone

PS : How does one attach a picture/attachment? I can find no options to do such a thing?

2

Congratulations on the build. That was the fun part!

To add an image (or any upload), you select the upload icon at the top of the edit window i.e.

3

You can set up a predetermined location to tell your machine to move to that location at the end of a carve.

Take a look at the G28 and G28.1 G-code threads on this forum.

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Thanks @GeoffSteer: Here’s the weird thing: I didn’t have that menubar when authoring the post. But when I go to edit it, it shows up.

Ok, so here’s my obligatory first cut pic! :slight_smile:

xcarve_firstCut.jpg1024×768 144 KB

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Thanks @LarryM : I just found over on the easel forums it looks like you can’t jog them (via a gui). I’ll look into sending the gcode directly.

7

If you can use the same position each time you can have the G28 imbedded in your tool path file. Most CAM programs allow you to place your own G-code into the post processor so that when the CAM program generates the G-code for your tool path it would include the G28 command. No jogging needed.

8

Click Carve, jog the machine to where you want, and then click cancel.
That should work!
Don’t worry - this will NOT loose your work piece home either.
When you want to carve again use the “Last Home” button.

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Thanks @JeremyJohnstone : That will work for now, just seems like a odd workflow for a new user, but makes sense.