So I bought the Myers waste board and fence. I realized after that I can’t set up the g code on vcarve desktop because of the size limitations. I have tried carbide create and can not for the life of me figure it out.
Why cant you set it up in VCarve as a tile job and just move the waste board to the section outside the 24"x24" cutting area?
I prob could, just haven’t done that before.
Your cutting surface on the OF is 42.25x42.25 if I remember correctly. Why not design or downsize the Myers board to 21”x21” squares. Cut one corner, rotate waste board 90 deg, cut area #2, then 3, then 4. You might have a little wider space in the center between your holes but there would still be plenty of coverage.
Hope I’m explaining this correctly.
No the maximum cutting area is X 32.25 and Y is 32.25.
@MyersWoodshop told me I needed to adjust my cutting size because the I was 1.5" Amana Surfacing bit. It would reach the edge. Change the size to be 31.75" only had a little on the back edge that had to sand down.
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Ok the outside footprint is 42.25x42.25 so what he said makes sense.
Can anyone tell me exactly where the 32.25x32.25 cutting area is located within the overall dimensions of the machine. Specifically, I know it closer to the front because the router is in front, but how far forward? Or should I simply make my spoil board come all the way to the front and only surface the area that can be reached? Same question for the sides - how far from the rails can the cutter get?
(I’m working on a Fusion model of the cutting area to help optimize the spoil board - happy share once I get it done).
-Tom
I was going to let someone that actually has their machine up and running comment on this one, but since they haven’t, here’s what I found. I have all the parts for the machine spread out on one of my work tables so I could get an idea for table sizing.
Regarding how far forward - it appears the Z axis router mount places the centerline of the bit almost exactly centerline with the front black extruded aluminum feet. The dust boot appears to extend roughly 3 1/2" past the very front of the machine (assuming your motors are positioned at the back of the machine).
Regarding left/right, there appears to be roughly 1 3/4", maybe 1 13/16" clearance between the centerline of the Z axis and the black extruded aluminum feet.
I have the Myers wasteboard and just recently used the amana 1.125" surfacing bit to surface the entire wasteboard. I used Carbide to do the surfacing pass with these settings:
- Auto-Homed machine
- Manually set Z height using sheet of paper.
- Project dimensions: 32.25" x 17", MDF (i’m only using half the wasteboard for now)
- Stock thickness: .75" (which doesn’t really matter)
- Toolpath zero: Lower left
- Amana 1 1/8" surfacing bit, 45525
- Stepover: 0.5625, 200 IPM feed, 10 IPM plunge
- Pocket toolpath
- Start depth: 0.0000"
- Max depth: 0.0100" (which was a bit much for me - i could have done 0.0050" or less)
- Cut time: 6 min.
It surfaced right up to the edge of the wasteboard, outside of the cutable area, and i was able to re-install the Myers fences inside of the surfaced area.
- Video of it running: CNC - sylvester.photo
- Video of the fit at the end: CNC - sylvester.photo
- Link to the 3d-printed fences shown in video: CNC Fence Set Custom Logo Available - Etsy
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Thanks Josh - the details are excellent for reference. In watching the video, it looks like a lot more than 0.01 in depth, so your comment about a smaller DOC seems like great advice. Since the Amana bit is not meant to plunge flat (no cutters on the inside), did you enter from the side? Curious how to handle this when making a full size waste board if we can’t maneuver outside the max size. I saw a large flattening bit with full size cutters on Amazon but it is a 1/2" shank. Seems like I can plunge with that if I can find a 1/4" shank with a reasonable diameter.
-Tom
I knew it wasn’t designed to plunge, so I set the plunge speed really slow.
I also suspect that my manual Z-probing was not as accurate as it should have been. I couldn’t use the touch probe because when probing, the controller wouldn’t allow the probe to happen because it would go past the soft minimum height. I didn’t know enough to fix that, so i manually set it to a random spot near 0,0 with a piece of paper.
How thick is your waste board? I have a 3/4 inch waste board and I am using this same bit. The bit barely touches. Do I need a thicker waste board? Or do I potentially lower the router position (currently using the middle holes)?
Thanks,
Greg
@cordesg For the first time cutting the myers waste board, two things:
- Make sure your bit isn’t “buried” into the collet. (most 1/4" bits only need ~1/2" in the chuck, some even have a line to show you how far)
- You can lower the Z- gantry to the lowest hole setting, but it shouldn’t be needed. (I looked back a photos i took while recording the cutting of the waste board, and I had it in the middle setting)
you can also see from this video how far out the bit is.
once you finish, and install the waste board, it’s up to you if you want to move the z gantry back up to the middle setting (if you moved it), which is where i’ve left it.
For me - I sometimes use 1/8" bits, which are roughly half the length of 1/4" endmills, and in the middle mount point I sometimes get maximum depth reached errors when trying to cut through some stock with the 1/8" bits. I’ll only need to move it up if i was cutting stock that’s ~3.75" plus (which is how far i have from my 3/4" waste board up to the bottom edge of the z-axis mount plate), but i have not encountered that need yet.
For the maximum depth warnings, it’s usually a factor of moving the bit further out, or making sure i’ve zeroed the z axis properly.
I hope that helps!
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