I have a few questions as a newbie, and was hoping someone could either answer them or point me in the right direction of a write up, existing thread, or tutorial. Thank you!
What is a recommendation for Safety Height, Step Down, Feed Rate, Plunge Rate, etc. for a Maslow set up?
How do I change bits mid job? e.g. if I want to make a sign, I cut the V-Notch stuff, switch bit, and then cut the edges?
Good suggestions for dealing with the final cutting and cleaning of tabs in smaller circles?
In reference to the sign making, is there a good font to use in FreeCAD to make the letters or do you just make them with lines?
Good way to cut acrylic or other plastic? And same info as #1. e.g. for a arcade control panel cover or marquee.
I’m sure I’ll have more later, but that’s good for now. I appreciate your help. This is an awesome community.
Safety height isn’t super critical, anything greater than zero will probably be fine. I usually do .25 inches. Step down should be around half the width of your router bit so if you are using a .25 inch router bit a step down of .125 is about right. Feedrate is limited to 40 inches/minute and I usually run at 40ipm. The plunge rate really doesn’t matter because again it will be limited by the hardware moving speed. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually messed with that one.
The easiest way to do this is to generate two gcode files, one for the v bit and one for the edge cut. As long as you don’t press the “Define Home” button between cuts they will stay aligned.
I found that for circles small enough for this to be hard it is usually safe to have no tabs. The part that gets cut out usually gets sucked up into the dust collector without issue. I have had it bounce around in there and cause problems, but that is rare.
I haven’t used freecad much, but I’m betting there is a font. You could also look at a more sign making specific program like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape which would have lots of fonts
This can be tricky because it has a tenancy to melt. I haven’t done it personally, but I know there are special router bits specifically for this kind of thing. Maybe someone with more experience can jump in?
What is a recommendation for Safety Height, Step Down, Feed Rate, Plunge Rate, etc. for a Maslow set up?
plunge rate is limited by the speed of the machine, just about anything you set
will be higher than the machine can do.
step down will vary based on the bit size and material, Bar tends to be very
conservative here and do 1/2 bit diameter, other people will vary from that to
2x diameter.
I recently had a job where I was cutting 3/4" baltic birch and I did it in 3
passes (.25 per pass)
safety height needs to clear the material, but with as slow a Z axis as we have,
any vertical motion has a large impact on the job, I usually do 1mm or so
Good suggestions for dealing with the final cutting and cleaning of tabs in smaller circles?