Well, last few days I haven’t had much time for the CNC.
I’ve been experimenting a little with trying to make some small boxes out of the scraps from cutting my strut plates using designs from makercase.com…but it hasn’t gone well. I had more apparent lost steps on X even after slowing down my cuts. Which has had me really confused since other than adding a newer sharper bit nothing else has changed…and even my old machine was able to cut the 1/4" MDF fairly effortlessly.
So today after killing my CYD pendant I decided to try again in some scrap 6mm ply I have. It was one of the first things I cut on this machine so I know I can cut it easily and reliably…maybe this new bit is just bad?
Well…the results were not great:
Looking closer the cuts are just all over the place and sloppy:
I knew one thing immediately that could be the issue. When I installed Doug’s kinetic mount it calls for 45mm bolts. I could only find 40mm or 50mm here locally. So I got 50mm figuring I could always grind them down if I had to. The top bolt cleared…but the bottom one hits the supports…I just left it a little lose though and was going to go back and shorten it but keep forgetting…and the machine was working so well I had even less incentive to go back and fix it. So…that’s an easy fix.
But - watching it cut this box I saw the major issue that’s going on. My core is moving all over the place on the X rails. I knew I had left it loose to let things break in…but didn’t realize it was THAT loose:
Bolt bolts are there…but neither has a nut actually tightened even a little bit yet.
So - that should be an easy fix as well…though it’s a little hot out there to deal with tonight. We’re already hitting the 100’s and the garage is hitting 110. I probably won’t be able to leave the LR4 out there when not in use much longer. And I’m a little worried that with those loose something may have started to shift with how loose it is. So…I’ll have to take a closer look later this week.
FWIW - even as sloppy as those cuts were the box still fit together halfway decently. But I’ll try again after snugging up the core and fixing that bolt on the mount.