Cheers Jonathan, will check out Doug’s video…
Edit: Any suggestions for cheap, easy to source, heavy material that can be incrementally thrown onto/into the Gantry (at the ends, not center), and/or YZ Plates?
Hoping weight can be added in balanced way that doesn’t do more harm than good. For example strap on a bunch of 1/2" x 1’ Rebar in various spots. Each Rebar would add 0.67lb for $3, so that’d be ~$4.50 per lb. Poured concrete would be cheaper, but am not sure how much additional weight should be thrown on to help enable faster feed rates for 1/4" v-bit, or down cut bits. With a 1/4"+ bit in the Makita, currently feels like machine’s light weight is the limiting factor, not the Stepper current-torque limits. Guessing that adding weight is an easy upgrade, rather than some captured YZ plate mod?
Willing to try out a few things before just going with Trochoidal cuts…
Edit #2 : Giving up on v-bit carving for now, figured out better option for my situation.
Was trying v-bit carving, then using metal spray paint on the carved channel to try redirecting light, results were dismal, not usable imo. I don’t have silver paint on hand either. For me, trying to feed light into an interior area and redirect that light internally just isn’t as good as simply doing edge lit panels. Initial plan was to put 5mm lights into 2020 channels facing forwards, then somehow direct light 90 degrees into the panel. Giving up on that…
New plan is to put lights into 2020 channels facing towards edges of an interior panel that’ll be part of a double panel front door. Panels and spacers held together via solvent welds.
Edit #3 : Picked up some scrap offcut blocks of steel from my local www.metalsupermarkets.com for $0.50 per lb. Strapping to gantry and YZ plates, seeing if that helps make faster v-cuts.
Edit #4: Adding 10lbs of steel to the gantry, 5lb either side does help make deeper cuts. However, it also helps Z steps to be skipped if/when bit runs past end of the stock and suddenly drops. Steppers are unable to handle the momentum and skip, when this happens a few times you ultimately end up with the bit lodged into the stock, unable to move, then we end up with the bit getting hot, dulling and potentially a thermal runaway situation. Maybe the bit I’m using isn’t good for this task, Spetool 90 Degree Carbide V Bits with Tiain Coated 4 Flutes, too many flutes maybe… @Jonathjon what v-bit have you been trying?
Am trying out my next dumbbell idea…