I am messing around with acrylic rn as well on primo.
I went with speed 22mms
And it really worked nice if the cuts are short like after 3 minutes the product and bit gets too hot.
I want to add a ice cube holder spot on my next attempt and have it plunge into the ice every 3 mins of cut.
The only problem is idk how to do that yet automagically lol
Are inside and outside edge of trochoidal cuts the same quality? If so, would you cutout acrylic panels using this or some other approach to obtain acceptable quality with minimal time and material?
Less lazy me would go figure out and test, am asking anyway since people here will know and share knowledge I wouldn’t have self discovered. Cheers!
All straight cuts, I think I have figured it out I am thinking of adding a ice cube tray “hole” in the project.
Put said ice cube in the cutout or basin if your spoil is particle board.
Then depending on cut do perimeter then do a drill in the center of said cutout(into ice). Then continue with the rest of cuts. And at another 3 mins depending if it’s a constant cut etc do another drill hole in cube and continue.
It should cool the bit and collet and knock off any clingons.
Alternate option is just get a ss cup and weld a stud on the bottom and use that as a hold down clamp/cooler.
So you can fill it and freeze it and have it ready to go
Things worked great at the speeds I had and swarf was flying nice just things got warm and well did the obvious
Like this
Does one perimeter pass at half thickness
Then goes to drill into ice cube to quench
Then goes to finish the cut
I think if I get time I may try this.
Or you could do a wax dip etc.
keep in mind I am very new so this could very well be a absolute bitchucking disaster.
Also on a side note thanks for all the vids aza. I want to do the rule like on your lr3 but in acrylic
Changing settings to what @Tokoloshe recommended for trochoidal cutting in 2 passes at 6mm per step down (feed 25mm/s, Troch Stepover 20%, Troch Width 50%, Oscillation 0) - Top Square:
Fudge.
That heat. For this sized cut my settings work with a 2mm depth and a cooldown period.
I’m going to try a longer 2mm cut.
Even a timeout injected every so often might be enough of a cooldown. Would be nice if Estlcam would let you add code after each DOC increment.
Nice! Appreciate seeing your update and settings that are working better (or less bad) for you. Am also trying some cuts today as well…
While figuring out how to configure drilling chamfered holes, I noticed Estlcam does let you add gcode in a few ways (beyond just start and end of the job).
Drill has a gcode option for some reason… Could maybe add pause, Dwell | Marlin Firmware e.g. G04 S5 would delay 5 seconds. Depending on how the planner sequences the cuts, you might need to explicitly set machining order.
Another option… Within Setup menu → select CNC Programs menu item → select Texts tab → select Operation Start tab, maybe try messing around with that for a bit. Maybe adding G04 here would work. Just need to remember to revert the change when done so other jobs are not slowed.
Maybe add some M300 commands to beep, Play Tone | Marlin Firmware, to help understand if/when the Operation Start gcode gets executed.
Disclosure… I know next to nothing about Estlcam, for example I only just realized it can be used to drill threaded holes, discovered that one while trying to discover how to drill chamfered/tapered holes. Good luck!
You can also just open the code with any text editor and add a pause. Or add a toolchange that actually doesn’t happen. The program pauses for that as well.
Good ideas…
I looked at the texts tabs already. I think a hole is treated as a single operation so it wouldn’t give the opportunity to put text in between DOC steps.
However…maybe cutting the whole project in 2mm increments would work. In between parts/holes you could add a pause. Then either save multiple gcode files with different starting depths or manually G92 a 2mm change in Z and rerun the same code.
I looked at this too.
If you set an oscillation greater than 0 then you can’t search for steps. Z fluctuates by the oscillation amount. It would only need to be done 6 times per part for me but…