I’ve had my 1F Elite for a few months now. It has the PWNCNC ATC spindle.
I’ve noticed that my 3D carves are not very smooth. I’m using a Taper ball nose bit at 10% stepover. I get areas that are pitted and grooved and at random spots the height of the carve changes. I have a smaller leadscrew machine that produces better results than the 1F using the same bits.
The 1F is on a torsion box so the base is solid. The spoilboard has been levelled.
Everything appears solid. I’m stumped. The STL doesn’t have these artifacts in them and when carved on my other machine, these artifacts don’t appear.
I’m looking for any assistance people might have. Thanks in advance.
Is it the same issues every time you run a carve or are they random, non-repeatable issues?
Do a quick check of all the major coupling screws on your machine. Particularly check and ensure that the stepper to ball screw coupler is fully tight for your Z axis. It’s possible your ball screw is slipping by a small amount at random times.
That’s odd, I make a lot of chess pieces using my Rotary and they come off the machine needing very little to no sanding, I use a tapered ball nose with a 1/32 tip radius and a .003- .005 step over for the finish carve.
I have the Elite woodworker and a cheap Chinese spindle and VFD.
I do use good hardwood like clear walnut, hard maple and African Blackwood.
I will be interested to see what you come up with.
Pat
You might look at how much end play you have in the Z axis, the Z is different than the X and Y which use a nut on the opposite end of the ball screw to tighten up just right (pretty subjective in my opinion)
The Z however is set by the engagement of the motor drive coupling, if you gently pry up on your spindle nose meaning the collet nut without a tool in it, there should be no upward movement in the spindle, if there is you would loosen the set screws on the coupling and move it toward the spindle to limit end play.
Hope this makes sense.
Pat
I had several issues with my cutting quality too. What solved it:
I reduced the acceleration of x and y axis motors to about 300mm/s2 (this will slow down your carves, but it had biggest impact on surface quality !!!)
At one point one of my y-ball nut screws had some play in it, I got very crisp carves after replacing it. They are cheap, but replacement will take a a few hours, especially I you care about squareness and tram.
After reading this thread again I agree that it probably is the Z-screw coupling.
Are you using the stock stepper motor resolution settings? I’ve changed all of mine from 400 steps/rev to 4000 ste0s/rev, and the difference is noticeable.
I’ve changed the z-axis resolution to 800. The walnut picture was carved at 400 resolution and the cherry was carved at the 800 resolution. I think I see a difference between them.
What speed and feed are you using and how sharp is the tip of the cutter?
The cherry piece looks like there could be some tearing of the wood, but the walnut piece makes me think surface tolerance may be too loose. Does your software allow you to tighten the tolerance?
On 2D work there often is not any tolerance setting.
Since it is a 3D surface the software will have a tolerance that it allows the cutter to deviate away from the surface. So the cutter is allowed go above and below the surface by that amount. So look for something called tolerance in your settings.
If it has accidentally been changed to something like .005" (.12mm) I would expect the finish to look like that. I keep my finishing tolerance at .0004" (.01mm)
A quick internet search says for Aspire it is under Program Options → Toolpath settings.
