I did a test cut today in Hickory and Purple Heart. I may decide to move X a little slower, but the plunge rate was good. Let me know if you have any questions.
Also Garrett Fromme does a great job explaining this. He uses Vectric software, but same principle.
; Be sure to move X and Y where you wan the keyhole to start first and home Z to the workpiece.
; Millimeter Units
G21
; Set Position
G92 X0 Y0 ; This will set the X and Y current position to Zero.
; Absolute Positioning
G90
G0 Z3.048 ; Z safe or clearance height, depending on your application.
G0 X0.000 Y0.000
;
G1 Z-10.160 F150.000 ; Move Z down to 0.4 inches at 150mm/min
G1 X25.4 F300.000 ; Move in X axis 1 inch or change this number to length you want the keyhole slot to ;be
G1 X0 ; Move X axis back to 0. This is important, so the Z pulls out of the workpiece where it started.
G1 Z3.048 ; Move Z back to clearance height
;
;End
Also forgot to mention that what ever you set the depth of the keyhole to, in my case it’s 0.4 inches, that will also be your stepdown. Or depth per pass. Basically it needs to go down to full depth first pass, move over the distance you want. Then back to zero and pull Z out. Sorry hope I’m making sense.
I’ve been looking at Carveco and the post processor mentioned, and consider that the $15/month fee is easily made up of you sell one inlaid board every 5-6 months. As someone as I get my lr3 cutting, I’ll be going that route
Is the software really as easy as the demos make it seem?
I think it would fall in the intermediate category if your just starting out. I started with Estlcam and learned quite a bit. If you have no experience you could start there. It’s pretty straight forward using the tips from V1 Engineering. Once your ready for inlays then I think Carveco and Vectric are equals. I just couldn’t see paying the upfront cost of Vectric. On the other hand Carveco Maker at 15 a month is doable for me. Heck skip take out food once a month and you got the 15 bucks. For Vcarve inlays you will need to spend some time understanding starting and max flat depth for the male part. The female is pretty straightforward.
Also I have modified the post processor for my needs. You can open it with notepad and make changes. It’s nothing more than a formatting for how the Goode is exported. I tried to get G2/G3 arc movements to work and failed. I decided to just remove them from the postp because I don’t see any advantage of using them if they did work. Machine runs fine without. I also like that I can create files in Carveco in inches and the postp will export in correct metric to run with Marlin. I think you can enable inches in Marlin but I didn’t want to risk it since my MPCNC is running good as is.
So- I installed Carveco maker last night, right around 11pm, spent a couple hours watching tutorials and going through the software, and I’m at the stage I can make stacked text, relief carves and v-carves.
What was taking me hours to figure out in Inkscape and eastlcam took me minutes in Carveco.
I found the PP that John Sherman shared, modified out the g02/g03 commands for arcs, and it’s been perfect.
Took 10 minutes to design a small heart shaped box with an initial in it, create the toolpath, save gcode, confirm and modify compatibility. 5 mins to find a decent piece of foam, mount it and start the program, and 8 minutes to cut.
4” heart, blue foam, 1/8” upcut spiral, 30mm/s feed 12krpm.
I got more practice today and am having a bear of a time figuring out how to profile cut or v-carve engrave cursive text. Which sucks, because the wife NEEDS some big cursive room signs for the kids bedrooms. Just can’t seem to get it to work, despite knowing how to do it with Inkscape and Estlcam.
Was able to do this mini monogram in MDF-
Striking out on FB with a question about it to a couple groups and nothing specific I can find in YT.
I’d have thought doing toolpaths on cursive would be super easy considering how popular it is.
This one didn’t help very much, but the first one with ‘fancy text’ looks like it’ll be useful
I also found some info in the ‘stacked text’ video about how to fix issues- and was able to clear maybe 60% of the issues. Apparently a lot of people doing Artwork in editors add duplicates and overlapping lines without giving much though to how it’s interpreted in CAD programs, as long as it looks good.
Okay, this is straight up impressive. Did the change of software from F-Engrave to Carveco really make the difference or was it something else? I made quite a few inlays with F-Engrave now (and with the Estlcam-Trick) but they don’t turn out nearly as awesome as your bull.
Carveco is free for 3 months. When I first downloaded it, it was taking me minutes to do things that Estlcam and Inkscape had me stumped on for hours.
Since it’s free- try it out. I’m sure you’ll like it. Even though it says it’s gif sainsnart customers, it worked just fine for me. Postprocessor is available here
Philipp, I don’t want to knock F-Engrave because I’m sure the creator put a lot of work into the software. I do not know why it wouldn’t work for my particular setup. So I will say this for me with my setup on the MPCNC SKR board and Marlin firmware…using Carveco is a dream come true. It makes the use of my CNC enjoyable. I can sit down sketch out what I need. Export the code directly to my SD card and go cut it. I have zero complaints about Carveco. Working a full time job with a family, I have to make the best use of my time and if 15 bucks a month saves me hours it’s worthwhile. Might not apply to everyone. There are many other options but this is what I will use until it no longer serves my purpose.
Agreed. With such limited time, I don’t really have time for sitting at a computer trying to get things to work
At some point soon, do you mind if I PM you for specifics? Got a few cutting boards planned and want to get it as close to correct as I can. I’m making 3” thick end grain burger blocks over the next couple weeks
I am not a really big fan of subscriptions and I am designing everything in AutoCAD and Estlcam (though if creating toolpaths is easier there I might contemplated to use it for that). I would really only use it for inlays I think. I also contemplated V-carve Pro because it also has nesting, which you can’t really get for free either.
I’m hoping to fold inlays into my business model- so 1 sale of a nice Chonky in-lay butcher block would cover me for a year. Make the business pay for the tools
Deepnest.io is pretty insane. I doubt anything could nest better. Once you figure out the interface, it is pretty easy. Add your material size, drop in all your paths, let it work as long as you want. Options for how to leave any free space as well.
Sure np…. I’m no expert by any means but don’t mind comparing notes and sharing info. Most of the cut depths etc I learned from you tube videos. Then experimenting on scraps. I can send you a few links to those as well. The board I posted is edge grain or face grain actually and from my understanding edge grain is less forgiving that End grain due to the wood fiber orientation. I have some end grain boards made up and ready for inlays soon. I’m build a bandsaw right now…lol from Matthias Wandels plans.
