What do I do first

1

are there any step by step instructions or videos of what is the very first thing to do once i get the machine mounted on table and all cables hooked up. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now about what needs to be done before attempting any cuts of any kind, wifi, firmware update, etc. will be using a monitor with keyboard and mouse. . thanks

2

This may not be the best way but the first thing I did was, after watching a heap of videos) - cut a circle:

1.Slapped on a piece of 25mm mdf as a wasteboard (screwed it down). i didnt surface the board as i hadnt, at that point, purchased a surfacing bit.

  1. added a piece on 18mm plywood (about a foot square). Screwed that to the wasteboard (made sure screws were at far corners and below surface.

  2. Created a 18mm deep about 3 inch diameter cyclinder in F360, then created a contour path with 1mm depth of cut, 1/4 inch bit and standard feeds and speeds.

  3. Created gcode (post process with onefinity post processor)

  4. Transfered code to Controller via USB

  5. Homed then set home of cnc to center of plywood after whizzing the router around the table using the joystick

  6. Switched on router, ran the code. Finger hovering over the pause button.

Worked fine. But nerves jingling as the cnc came to life.

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3

If you have purchase software, then go to your basic tutorials and follow them step by step with a basic carve. as you get deeper into the tutorials you will find your footing and gain confidence.

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4

are there things that need to be done before i even start cutting anything

5

Yes.

Steps 1-3.

Step 4 for tiling (you may never do tiling, but…)

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6

Hey Butch,

to consider a machine ready to start work, I would make sure, especially with the Onefinity CNC machine, that it is

  1. rectangular (“squared”) and that it is
  2. coplanar (not twisted).

For checking the rectangularity, there were different methods suggested, but as a first check for rectangularity (“squaring”), I would take a bar gauge:

and stick its ends diagonally on the machine right where the chrome tubes go into the black aluminum block, first as a diagonal between left front and right rear, then right front to left rear. Since in a rectangle the two diagonals are identical, these two distances should be the same so the machine is square. If you can move the bar gauge to a greater length in one of the two positions than in the other, then the machine is not a rectangle but a parallelogram, that is, the angles are not right angles. This can lead not only to workpieces where right angles are not right, but also, in extreme cases, to blocking of the Y-sliders.

To adjust this, you need to loosen a little bit the screws of at least two adjacent machine feet (say, e.g. the left and the right front feet), as well as loosen the screws that attach the X-axis to the Y-sliders a bit, so that you can move the feet so that the machine becomes right-angled, i.e. both diagonals can be measured as equal with the bar gauge.

For a more accurate test for squareness, you should do a test with the machine milling a test rectangle. Create a rectangle as large as the workarea as g-code and run it on the machine using a v-bit (with minimal cutting depth), and then use a bar gauge or a ruler to check whether or not the diagonals are equal. If you take a ruler, its accuracy or its scale does not matter at all, just make a mark on it when you check one diagonal of the milled rectangle, and check if the mark is identical when you check the other diagonal of the rectangle with it.

The so-to-speak “official” thread in this forum about rectangularity of the machine is “Is your router frame a parallelogram? Mine was!”

For the second check, the check for coplanarity (that the machine is not twisted), you can use the fishing line method. There is a description linked here and here.

A measured twist of the machine can be compensated by changing the height of one foot of the machine. Since three points are always in one plane (a table with three legs cannot wobble), it is sufficient to bring the fourth foot into this plane by changing its height. Which foot this is does not matter. You can do this if you have the QCW frame by using the Any Surface Leveling System and adjusting the height of one foot. If you have an ordinary, not so stiff table, you can adjust that with a height adjustable caster. You may repeat this adjustment if you move the table to another position, because rarely is the floor perfectly flat.

There is a third check that can be done, which would be check for perpendicularity of the milling motor’s shaft axis to the work surface. This makes only sense if you eliminated any error in coplanarity (twisting of the machine)

One question: Are you already familiar with a CAD/CAM software? If not, this would be the first thing to do, as it takes some amount of time. Usually it’s good to learn this during the monthes you wait for the delivery of your machine.

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7

Hi everybody, I just get my journeyman oneinfinity machine. I just want to start cutting the same teste sample that comes with the machine but I am lost, i home x and Y axis, but z axis says over. I don’t have the probe and i try to zero z with paper but it still says z is 4,6mm obove limit. Can someone help me please, i want to start whit it.

8

Did you read this?

Anything there help?

Any chance that you have too great of a distance between your work surface and the router because of one of the following?
a) No spoilboard
b) short bit
c) mounted the router too high up.

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9

Hey Victor,

as long as you haven’t loaded a g-code program of your own, you can safely ignore the limit errors.

10

thanks everyone. I knew about squareness and tramming but not coplanar. I’m hoping to get the machine mounted today .this may be a dumb question but do I check coplanar with the x axis on or off the machine

11

Thanks a lot for the explanation. After homing amd zeoring all axis, I try to start running the machine but it shows the message “change tool and attach probe”. Can you please tell what do i have to do?

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12

You may find more of the material that Onefinity provides helpful. e.g. EP4 Onefinity CNC - First Cut On Your CNC - Team Onefinity

13

Hey Victor,

then it is likely that your g-code program contains a M6 (tool change) command. In this case I would insert and secure the correct milling bit and attach the touch probe, so that the machine is able to get to know the new tool’s length by probing Z.

14

Thanks.

Since I don’t have the touch probe, do you recommend to create a new program instead of running the one that comes with the machine?

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15

Hey Victor,

It is NOT recommended to run any g-code program that was not made by yourself.

Didn’t you read Help! My Toolpath says ‘Under’ or ‘Over”! (with videos) as @Atroz suggested?

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16

Yes I did. Now I’m more familiarize with the machine.

17

Good advice but he’s trying to run the Onefinity one that where they say: [quote=“OnefinityCNC, post:1, topic:14478”]
(please note, this file is the test carve we run internally when we QC the machine. We do not recommend running straight gcode you do not create (since we have a video showing how to, this is the one exception). There are too many variables the user does not know about how the file was created.)
[/quote]

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18

I never ran theirs. The first thing I did was the surfacing of the spoilboard using my own g-code. It does sound like you’d have to do a new program or edit theirs by hand.