So I am about ready to get my 3/4" EMT and I’m trying to determine my MPCNC footprint to finalize the length of EMT I need.
The question I have is: Does size of the router or additions like dust shoe/vacuum hose, etc take away from the “Desired Work Length/Width” determined in the Cut Calculator?
Should I be adding like 6" or so to the calculations to accommodate the router/dust shoe/vacuum line, etc?
I believe the cut calculator take the recommended router’s end mill location into consideration. You will lose some to the dust collector tube. I wouldn’t go 6 inches, maybe 3 inches to be safe. Collector tubes are usually inch and a half to two inches. Worse comes to worse, emt is cheap, leave some extra belt material on the ends and you can expand if necessary.
So it does take the router into account ?
One other question… how should one load the gantry relative to a lower left starting position?
What is consider the home position when your start is lower left?
Right now I am looking at a 18" x 18" work area.
I’m not getting the question. The lower left is the standard starting position. Home is where you tell the machine home is.
Which ever way you orient the gantry, you just need to know where that makes your home position as @Barry99705 alludes to. If you’re asking if the gantry width and depth are factored into the calculator, the answer is yes.
in these two examples if you are standing in front and home is left and nearest you…
you can see the gantry is in two different positions.
one points to the left and the other to the right…
Personal preference. When I build mine, I had it oriented like your first picture (router on the lower left side of the gantry, pointing to my X=0, Y=0 location)
That is what I am thinking as well but wanted to ask —
In regards to home would that too be the same… meaning home position is the lower left corner or in your terms X0 Y0 ?
One other question – I am concerned about getting square - what is the best method for getting it square?
Start with a square table, then measure both diagonals and the sides before screwing the feet down.
Ok. I am going recycle a heavy duty table that has 3/4" thickness and it is square 3ft.
In regards to working height… I don’t plan on milling anything over 1" but most likely will be 3/4" wood and then 1/4" plastics and I want to really try 1/4" aluminum sheet/plate… that said what would be the ideal Z axis work height? the Cut Calculator defaults to 3" min 2.87… so is it 3" then min basically.
The default height is a good working height, provides for some material variability and maneuverability and accessibility.
0,0 is where you decide to put it based on how the steppers and, if you use them, end switches are connected. It just made it easier for me to thing in terms of typical graph paper with the absolute origin in the lower left corner. Starting without end switches is easier because there are fewer wiring issues that could confuse things until you are comfortable with how the machine works. As comfortable as I am now, I still don’t have them on my machine. I set the router to where I want X=0,Y=0,Z=0 to be and manually issue a G92 X0 Y0 Z0 command. So, when I start the job, this is where the CNC thinks the origin is.
I wish I had these when I was squaring up my build
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3413898
I had a tough time using a tape measure, I think the diagonal tool would be really helpful