Or maybe the question should be “how long before you trusted YOURSELF…?”
My 4x8 LowRider v4 is complete, squared, yada yada. I’m able to cut small things pretty reliably, but not 100% yet. Sometimes the culprit is definitely me, but sometimes the culprit is still TBD. Example TBD scenarios: (you can skip reading these bullets)
I was cutting 2x identical 6-foot long pieces out of 1/2” BB with the common 3mm carbide bit. Some sort of shift happened during the 2nd piece, and that piece got cut a bit wrong. Perhaps this was a feed rate issue, or perhaps it’s a loose grub screw? I haven’t debugged this yet as I’m distracted by other things.
Homing Y…. without doing cutting operations, I can take the Y axis all the way down the table & back time & time again, and it always hits the pencil marks (at 0, 1000, etc) perfect. But after a few cutting operations, sometimes I’ll home it, and it’s no longer square. Maybe this is a grub screw issue? I don’t know yet.
I’m not here to ask for debugging help (I’ll post that separately after first being a reasonable human and doing some due diligence!)
BUT… as for this thread I’m curious: was there a certain point when you transitioned from “I’m a doofus.” to “I will fearlessly start a 2-hour cutting operation on a $90 piece of plywood.”?
I still don’t trust my Lowrider unless I know it has already made the cuts in that material. The first time I cut a job in a material I tend to stand and “ride the stop button.” I have some foam that I often cut first to check the gcode. Then I cut it in the material, but I listen as much as I watch.
Once I know its cut it successfully, and I know what it sounds like, I may putter around at the table next to it (often processing the last batch of parts.) I keep a fire blanket and a fire extinguisher at the table so if I hear something strange I’m right there to shut it down and prevent a fire.
I think its a combination of trusting the LR4 (which if its cutting parts incorrectly is a work stopper.) But also knowing the material. I still struggle with some of the speeds and feeds on some materials.
I have cut a lot of insulation foam on mine practicing different cuts and designs. It has saved me from ruining a nice piece of wood. A few of the designs were also cut in MDF after the foam just to be sure before cutting an expensive piece of wood.
For plywood I would cut out one part at a time do make sure my feeds and speeds were OK. Once I felt confident I would cut out the rest of the project.
nothing in this world comes without Mistakes, the BEST teacher is mistakes, AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT HURT yourself.
That said, the best learning i did was with Repetition this christmas. Always be prepared for change as well. Fluidnc, etc, there will always be change.
Start small, so mistakes do not cost alot, then go to your large more expensive stuff.
Oh, and ALWAYS ask for help here, there are soooooooo many different people with different ways of doing things, this place is AWESOME!
I had trust issues with my LR3, I would use it to cut speaker cabinets, 3 full size 18mm plywood sheets per cabinet, each sheet would take around 4-5hours, iused to make these cuts after work and had many nights ruined because I didn’t notice a few step shift soon enough or I did notice it happen but couldn’t get the machine to pick up where it left off In the correct place. Warped wood was always an issue too, it would affect cut depth and cause step issues if the wood was Warped and lifted too high as it would try to cut much deeper than it can. Step issues in Z were always hard to notice too sometimes not until it’s finished and hasn’t cut gbe pieces out fully.
A lot of this is probably user error but put myself off Massively with the amount of wood I wasted want to jump back in to it soon though hopefully Have better luck this time.
Had half of the LR4 parts printed since I gave up so I need to pull my finger out and get the rest printed. Hopefully an upgrade will help rhe speed And time issues I’m having
want to jump back in to it soon though hopefully Have better luck this time.