Hello everyone how are all of you? I am reaching out to the community as I cant seem to get the proper help I need anywhere else. I am currently working on a two sided carve and I am trying to set alignment pins so I can align the material once I flip the job. At this point in time, I am only drilling 3 holes in the material straight through the material and into the bed of the machine. Hoping that once I flip the material the holes in the material line up with the holes on the bed. Once I flip the material this is not the case, the holes on the material are not lining up with the holes on the bed. Ive checked my machine for square several times, I have performed the 345 method as well and everything seems good to go. My material seems square as best I can tell with a tape measure and an actual square. Ive tried using a fence and aligning the material, nothing seems to work. Does anyone have any idea on what I might be doing? Is anyone able to take a call or facetime and help walk me through this? At this point I am at a loss and losing hope on this Elite Foreman Gen2.
Can you provide a few images of the setup and material.
Which CAD/CAM are you using?
Greg, when you flip the workpiece over, it is now a “mirror image” What you do is place your alignment holes on the top side, and then immediately select them, right click, and “copy to other side” Vectric will place them on the bottom in the mirrored position. You then drill thru your workpiece from the top side. Complete your top side vectors/carves and then remove the piece. Now, have the cnc drill the BOTTOM SIDE holes into your spoilboard. Now when you flip your workpiece over those holes will line up.
I am using vcarve pro. Basically I have a 24x24 sheet of arboron that is .250 thick. I am drilling a two .250 dowel on each bottom corner. They are both 1 inch from the side and 1 inch from the bottom. I drill .750 through the material and into the spoil board. When I flip the material from left to right, the holes in the material aren’t lined up with the holes on the spoil board anymore. I have not even begun my primary carve yet, I am just trying to make sure that when I flip the material, the dowel holes line up so the material will be held in the proper position.
Maybe I’m missing something here but have you considered making the zero point at the center of your board?
This would be done in VCarve and let it gen the gcode referenced from the center of your material. At the CNC, you would zero your X and Y at the center of your board. Center never moves when your board is flipped so it’s always aligned regardless of which side is being carved.
Hi Greg,
It appears that you hadn’t calibrated your probe block offset and consequently an adjustment of 0.01" needed to be made in the X probe offset. Additionally, when prompted for bit dia. during the probing sequence, you were using 0.25" as the bit diameter, but your bit is 0.223" - a variance of 0.027". Combined, the total variance amounts to 0.037"; or a hair over 1/32". This variance will compound when you flip your material over and would result in the holes not being aligned by approx. 1/16".
Once you corrected these variances, it appears that the holes aligned correctly as expected.