Update regarding my Gerber Sabre
Hi all folks at CNCzone,
I thought I give an update about my experiences with the machine so far.
I had to change the y-axle to get the precision back. (Expensive) There is some squeaking in the X and Z too but not that much affecting the precision. I think some previous owner has used oil on them instead of dry lube.
I finally bought Artcam Express and had managed to do 3D carvings, signs and a lot of cabinets. It’s really great to cut out all the panels, cut slots for Domino tenons (Festool) and then assembly the lot. The fittings are always perfect, panels square and within a 10th of millimetres. As a newbie it’s really a WOW experience. And when you do more than one cabinet of the same kind, the repeatability increases the revenue.
I am doing 3D terrains for architectural models and the Mill wizard is a great help in this work.
The problems I have had are with anomalies in feed rates and spindle speed.
I am trying to get help from Artcam but nothing heard so far.
No matter what feed rate I choose for inside or outside cuts it uses the same slow feed like 15 mm/sec. But when cutting a panel that isn’t square but rather like an L shape it speeds up to the desired speed on the inside of the L and slows down on the rest when doing an outside cut. And the opposite when doing an inside cut. Very strange.
However, I found an old post in their forum saying that one should use inches/sec instead of mm/sec and use the spooler for Gerber with tool changer despite the model is made in mm. That, he said, corrected the problem. Have to try this in some dry cuts.
My experiments with G-code haven’t been successful. The machine will simply not run.
All in all I am a very happy CNC: er starting to make money on my machine. I haven’t done much advertising so far. Word has got around. Has had a lot of regular woodworking job, but now I feel that I want to go over more and more to CNC-work. Its fun, challenging and the competition is quite weak in my area just north of Stockholm.
Thanks again for all help I have got so far from all you experienced guys!
PS: If you ever happen to visit Sweden (middle part) drop me a line and we can have a cup of coffee in my shop.
Suggestions for new vacuum tabletop
Just want to throw out a question about the best replacement tabletop for my gerber sabre 408.
I haven’t started using the vacuum table yet because the valves and tubes were worn out. Now I installed new valves and tubing so everything is set up for vacuum. The vacuum pump is a 7,5 kw Siemens.
Here is what I would like to do:
There are seven zones running along the length of the machine with T-slots in between. The zones are full of holes in larger recesses.
That’s great when cutting whole sheets, but I want to be able to narrow down the vacuum zone. Some tables has phenolic tops that you can limit with rubber sealings. Is it possible to make such a tabletop out of a plastic sheet?
Or could I just put out soft plastic sheets around the material I want to rout, so that the plastic is sucked down against the holes.
A third option is to just "peel of" and put an mdf on top and use as a bleed trough. But I think maybe my vacuum pump is too small for that. Or is it?
If someone has any experience with these matters, I would very much appreciate any suggestions.
Vacuum Chuck for CNC Router
Vacuum chucks are available for the small part sizes that you are needing to machine on your CNC router. A channel seal is used to contain the vacuum to the shape of the part. If interested, send machine size details and part details -
Precision Spindle & Accessories Inc.
www.precisionspindleinc.com tel. 519 671 3911
[email protected] fax. 519 652 5994