Great to hear Brian. Just remember to clamp or screw that wood down a lot. You don’t want to waste a blank 'cause it shifts. As Christian says in his videos, a foam test piece is cheap and easy and a crash or poor piece shape is no big deal. The first two things I made with Estlcam were a waste board with 1/4-20 threaded nuts, and a bunch of slotted hold downs with a notch on the ends. Super easy with his program.
I’ve also started playing with importing STL print files directly into Estlcam. It doesn’t seem to be a problem other than not exactly reproducing the holes in something like Markz’s laser mount piece : thingiverse.com/thing:1982844. This will work as a general purpose tool mount for my MPCNC. It isn’t perfectly made with my first try, but it milled in less than an hour compared to Several hours printing. As a general purpose mount I can pretty much do anything with it - cut, glue, screw, etc. - unlike plastic stuff which is not so adaptable.
With this type of file import, Estlcam offers a choice of ‘block’ or ‘free’ machining so I usually choose block. I cut a slab of wood, tell the program how big it is and clamp it down against an ‘L’ shaped area so when I flip it over it registers properly. I’ll rough it out with a 1/4" bit, usually a round nose. I limit the depth to 10mm so I can use my 1/8’ bit with a 1/4" shank for a finishing pass and it won’t bind up. Estlcam stops for the tool changes and allows you to move the router anywhere to change the bit, then it will resume the next step. Just don’t change any of the axis settings or reef on the router.
I mentioned above that I made a touch plate and like it. Christian shows how to use simple aluminum tape as well. My tape is 0.08mm thick so there is somewhere to input that number. I will use the touch plate or aluminum tape to reset the Z after a tool change and his CAM program makes this easy Especially with a gamepad.
I also found after a lot of looking and printing that I like this dust mount the best: thing:2797108 by nellson. The magnets are easy to find and make tool changes a snap. I used some rubber doorsweep for the bottom instead of his printed stuff or bristles. I hot glued it into the slot of the bottom piece and vertically cut the rubber into 1/8" strips for 3/4" long ‘bristles’. I use a short length of pipe and an upper clamp fixture from someone else’s dust shoe ‘thing’ (can’t find it) to stabilize it. I hook the end of my shopvac to a long piece of plastic sump pump hose 1 1/4" and loop that above my CNC. This works really well. I try to have it so it doesn’t pry on the Z axis. This will get most of the chips and dust. Ear protection is a Must though.
Cheers, Jeff