my question is how can i get estelcam to speed up the process since it wont be actual cuts just a marker lol
I’ve tried to edit a few settings but so far its still saying its going to take 2.5 hours to draw a few straight lines lol
I’m preparing to cut out a couple of arcade cabinets…
so it will be pretty simple cuts to do i would assume
but i want to check to see it can draw the lines on a large sheet of paper have covering the entire table
to be sure its going to be doing straight lines /correct sizes etc
Just create a new tool and call it pen in estlcam. Set its feed rate to whatever your machine can handle and a “cut” depth of 2-3mm. BE SURE TO SET YOUR ORIGION POINT THE SAME AS YOUR REAL CUT. save as a separate gcode file and run.
There are pen mounts available on thingiverse.
Here’s the one I made that attaches over the bit for my makita clone:
Estlcam always assumes bottom left to be 0.
You can start it from the top left, but you won’t be able to have it show up in your workspace. The workspace is just visual and does not have any influence on the created gcode.
Estlcam wants to know where zero is for the X and Y coordinates. If you are then going into positive numbers, then this will be lower left.
Your coordinate system must be a right hand coordinate system, so increasing X must move to the right, increasing Y must move away from some possible vantage point. Increasing Z must move up and away from the table. Reversing one (ie, Y) will result in everything you cut out as being a mirror image of the intended shape.
So if you home to (example) X=0, Y=2880 that’s fine
Alternately you can still home to the same point and say X=0, Y=0, but say the lower left corner is X=0, Y=-2880 and move the zero in Estlcam to the top left. Both Estlcam and Marlin are OK with working in negative numbers.
For me, I set up workspace coordinates so that X=0, Y=0 is the lower left of the material that I am cutting. I think most of us here either do that or set up the machine space (G92 X0 Y0) so that the zero point is the lower left as well, and different from the actual home position.
Estlcam sets the bottom left to be zero by default, but you can move that to any point on or off of the drawing with the zero set tool.ķ
As it seems you are just getting started, keep your machine a standard as possible so you can benefit from the documentation and forums. I know coming from the software side of things that we want top left to be 0,0 but it’s not the norm in CNC land.
Set your machine to home to bottom left and call that 0,0 that way it agrees with ESTLCAM and 95% of the machines on the forums.
The workspace is just visual and does not have any influence on the created gcode.