I don’t have the know how of cameras and such to make this but I just thought, what if there was a 3d printable little camera that you can seat nicely in the center hole when the Maslow is raised up on its z axis before cutting that has a crosshair to line up a center dot on the workpiece with where the bit will be coming down, then you can just take the camera off and know your cut will be centered
I love that idea. There were some folks who used lasers to do something similar a while back, but it’s still a little tricky to see in there where the laser is pointing.
I think that something like a 3D printer nozzle cam would work well for that.
3 Likes
I designed a little crosshairs thing with a mirror that can drop into the center hole of the maslow4. I haven’t tried cutting it yet. It would let you center the maslow4 on a mark.
https://abundance.maslowcnc.com/run/wouldchuckit/Maslow4_Crosshairs_for_centering
4 Likes
It occurs to me that looking into a tiny dark hole in the bottom of the machine will require a flashlight even with a mirror.
2 Likes
I have an X-Tool S1 (laser) machine that has a laser crosshair. The problem that I find with the idea is that the crosshair is going to need to be offset, it obviously can’t just shoot straight down. On my S1, the crosshair is offset from the laser, and the proprietary software (XCS) knows that the crosshair is in a different (offset) position, and although it is pretty accurate, it is not bang-on.
With the cnc, and maybe mine is different because I’m using an M2 which has a reasonably sized hole to see what is going on. I can draw pencil lines on my workpiece to determine center, and then I lower the bit to 0.5mm or less from the surface, and line up the bit to the center of my pencil marks to determine where I need to be. I trust my own eyes more than I trust a crosshair.
I hate to be that redneck (no, I don’t) who points out the easier way, but it really is that simple. Sometimes technology clouds our vision over a simpler solution.
2 Likes
normally eyeing it up is pretty easy but since you have a sled surrounding the machine and a plexiglass wall you have limited ability to line it up because you can raise it up and center it to the center hole but when you lower the machine you can no longer see what is in the center near your bit which is why i figured we could use some way to see in to the hole more accurately so you can set it before lowering the bit since its pretty much impossible to see when the bit is down