After months of planning, I have made progress on building my MPCNC Primo. The workspace area is 22.5" by 18" and I plan on focusing primarily on word projects. Mainly cribbage boards since drilling 361 holes by hand gets repetitive.
For some background, I have been woodworking for a decade now and 3d printing for a few years. I first thought that a cnc would just be another tool like my table saw but building really has been like getting into a whole new hobby. Very exciting but a lot to learn.
My table is probably a bit over done but knowing my history, if I built in just on a flat board, it would stay that way until something breaks. This way I am a bit future proofed in case I want to incorporated either a vacuum bed or drop table.
I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth the build went once I started putting the plastic parts and metal together. I probably almost have the documentation memorized by how carefully I was following it but it really did clear up the steps to go.
Once things were all wired up, I was pretty nervous about first movements. My daughter stood by the e-stop just in case but thankfully I only had to flip a couple of stepper connection before it was moving correctly. I am very happy with the Jackpot board.
The Test Crown with sharpie moved fine but it looks like I was not getting consistent connection with the page. My theory is that the temp spoil board was not flat. That said I am satisfied enough to move on to making my long term spoil board with t track set up.
Once I surface the spoil board, I plan to redo the crown with marker again and if smooth then move on to foam then wood. I also want to clean up the wires and make a stand alone cart so I can get my work bench back.
It feels like next I should be getting the spindle running but I am not sure what to do first.
Use a surfacing bit to level out the spoil board but I am not sure that is necessary since it is not as out of level as I thought. Plus I am not super stoked about my first live wood action being with a 1" wide bit.
Accept the levelness of the spoil board is good enough for this stage and do some practice carves on foam. Then move to wood and surfacing if needed.
Either way I need to start diving in to Estalcam.
I am leaning toward the second option but what is recommended?
Many people here have ran their machines years without surfacing the spoil board. I’d consider that a “new” or “advanced” thing people have been doing.
I made use of scrap wood and leftover conduit. I used the V1 Conduit Clamps and that made for a fairly stable structure.
I had attempted to carve out feet for the conduit but they kept cracking along the wood grain. In the end, I just printed more Primo feet and it came together well.
Next up is working on an enclosure to contain the dust while carving.
