I have an Elite CNC and am in the process of making some inlaid cutting boards for family members for the holidays. For the most part, things have been going pretty well. Unfortunately, on some areas, and particularly small, more detailed areas, I seem to be getting a pretty obvious glue line. While reviewing some YouTube videos on inlays, an individual stated that it is imperative to “make sure your stepper distance is correct”.
I have a basic understanding of stepper motors and how they function. I’ve always thought the stepper distance was inherent in the motor and can’t be tweaked.
Am I correct or is there a way to make my Elite even more accurate.
Mine was perfect as 1F set it up, are you doing vcarve inlays or straight sided inlays, Vcarve inlays are much better for having no glue line but a bit trickier to program, if you are doing straight sided inlays and have glue lines you probably need to tweak the insert (male) slightly larger, in Vectric this is easy using the offset tool.
Hope this helps
Pat
The inlays I’m doing are vcarve inlays. I’ve spent months viewing videos and, through trial and error, trying to resolve any and all variables that may lead to a less-than-perfect inlay but seem to still be having some issues.
I realized today that my spindle was about .009" (across 11 inches) out of tram front to back and about .006" side to side.
I’m hoping that correcting these and checking the accuracy of the spindle movement will resolve the current issue.
A while back, I was having problems with my inlays not matching until I discovered that the tip of my V-Bit was chipped, so my Z depth was off and it caused sizing problems between the two pieces. Any variation will be doubled because you are cutting both sides with the same error.
I won’t be able to answer that specific question as I built my own setup using a Onefinity Woodworker frame only, and added my own Masso G3 controller, stepper motors, etc…
I’m not sure. I have tried to imagine how the geometry would interact, but can’t quite envision it. Haven’t tried it myself yet either. It is on my to-do list.
Setting a ball nose bit up as a v bit will result in loose inlays because the bit will be too deep by the length of the ‘missing’ tip. This will push the pocket wall out (to wide) and the inlay wall in (too small). The inlay will bottom out before it wedges into the pocket.
Thanks for your reply and explanation. Very interesting!
I’m not sure when I’ll get to it, but I will certainly give this a shot.
In the engraving category of tools, one of the parameters that needs to be set is the “flat diameter” of the bit. In the case of a ball nose bit, how would this be defined?
Would need to do the trig for the angle of the tapered ball nose. I’ve just reset z zero up a few hundredths of an inch. Can also sand off the bottom of the inlay. Goal is to allow the inlay to wedge down into the pocket. The down side of a ball nose is can’t get a perfectly sharp point on small inlays. I attached an inlay with some small parts as an example.
On a video I recently watched, the individual uses the radius of the tip of the ball nose bit. Not sure exactly why but it may be something to try in the future.
