These are some of my first cuts on the Maslow with a parametric storage crate I designed in Fusion. Got some nice results out of most of it, but the corners are not very sharp and seeing some deviation in the bit here and there. Mostly in the 2D Contour cut around the outside of the piece. Here’s the piece with issues circled, and a few screen
shots of the settings in Fusion. Help with dialing these settings, or what to experiment with would be much appreciated!
Thanks! Really amped to finally have a Maslow, been following the project for many years.
So the dog bones help straighten out the cuts as well as solve for the bit corner radius? It’s not a cutting feedrate thing? Or some other setting? Some of the outer corners are a bit rounded as well. The machine is moving clockwise in the zoomed in photo.
Dog bones basically give more clearance when fitting pieces together. A router is using a rotating bit, so it makes excellent rounded cuts but bad square inside corners (outside corners are normally fine because it simply cuts in perpendicular straight lines). Dog bones cut a bit-sized circle into an inside corner giving the clearance necessary at the expense of a small gap. Alternatively, you can use rounded joints rather than joints that need square inside corners.
Overall, I think the cuts look pretty good. The top cut looks better than the bottom cut. As you get further outside of the center position, the M4 can have increasing difficulty. There’s a utility to check the best cutting zones based on the size of your frame.
It also looks like “Roll Around Corner” selected for “Outer Corner Mode”. That’s likely causing at least some of the rounding for outside corners. Inside corners must be round of dog-boned. Instead of dog-bone, you can also square up inside corners by hand after M4 cutting.
Thanks for the input! I know dog bones are used for the bit corner radius, but sounds like it can help w/ straightening out the entry and exit of the corners as well?
On the bottom cut I changed to “outer corner mode” and also changed the direction of the router path. I think the corner mode helped, but the direction was maybe the opposite of how it should run in regard to the bit rotation, hence some tear-out.
I have two more sides to cut, so I’ll experiment with some of these settings and report back!
I don’t believe that dog bones will help there (though I could definitely be wrong). My best guess is that the machine is having some trouble moving in and out quickly causing the lines to waiver a bit. You could try reducing the feed rate, so it has more time to change direction. Is there any slack in the belts? If there’s some slack, then that may be exacerbating things as the slack is taken out of the belt.
