[azam1959]

Hi,
I am relatively new to CNC hobby. I recently acquired CNC router, mill and lathe. I managed to create few carving projects on mill and router table made few test cuts on lathe. I think I am ready to move to more complex mltipart part assemblies/projects. Still working on wood and plan to move to Al once I have more knowledge/experience.

I got lot of help during my build and during first phase of CNC learning process from Zone. I think I am in better shape when it comes to cad/cam due to my background and fact that I can do all the work in horizontal position but we will see ... I will bee using autocad and inventorcam for design and tool path generation. Of course I do have Mach3 and am also using GWizard.

First issue ... I am able to do regular pocketing, pocket recognition, HSS and any other classic cutting operation on inventorcam but have some difficulty with iMachining. For a very simple profile operation 1) tool path computation take much longer compared to other operations 2) looking at simulation data, it seems that iMachining do take hours when comparative regular pocketing operation takes only minutes. I thought purpose of iMachining was to increase the tool life and decrease the machining time. I must be missing something here. Any idea on where to start trouble shooting? In my tests I am using machining level 2 for imachining technology wizard, I know changing this will make the difference but I do not have much experience with machines I have and want to be careful in the initial phase.

I will also be posting pictures of my projects on this thread to get constructive feedback. Hope to attract couple of more experienced folks to contribute to this thread as well.

Lets fun begin ...

Regards,

[azam1959]

edit: never mind ... not able to recreate the issue on the controller. will keep my eyes open for potential mach3 configuration settings but in the mean time i am able to complete the piece. will post the picture of complete project once i am done.

i was making symetrical parts and already made about dozen of them before mill stopped working. i was on g3 command but not sure if G3 is causing the problem. i did see similar behavior on lathe (from same vendor) for arcs and issue was resolved when i made the changes to the gpp files to use the line segments instead of arcs. is there any inventorcam user interface parameter i can change instead of changing the gpp file to instruct invetorcam not to use arcs and use line segments?

i have also posted on vendor's thread to check any other user has seen similar issue.

by the way here is the picture of my cut, i was trying to make 20 trapezoid four inch long pieces to make the wall of almost round container.



thanks

Hi,
I am relatively new to CNC hobby. I recently acquired CNC router, mill and lathe. I managed to create few carving projects on mill and router table made few test cuts on lathe. I think I am ready to move to more complex mltipart part assemblies/projects. Still working on wood and plan to move to Al once I have more knowledge/experience.

I got lot of help during my build and during first phase of CNC learning process from Zone. I think I am in better shape when it comes to cad/cam due to my background and fact that I can do all the work in horizontal position but we will see ... I will bee using autocad and inventorcam for design and tool path generation. Of course I do have Mach3 and am also using GWizard.

First issue ... I am able to do regular pocketing, pocket recognition, HSS and any other classic cutting operation on inventorcam but have some difficulty with iMachining. For a very simple profile operation 1) tool path computation take much longer compared to other operations 2) looking at simulation data, it seems that iMachining do take hours when comparative regular pocketing operation takes only minutes. I thought purpose of iMachining was to increase the tool life and decrease the machining time. I must be missing something here. Any idea on where to start trouble shooting? In my tests I am using machining level 2 for imachining technology wizard, I know changing this will make the difference but I do not have much experience with machines I have and want to be careful in the initial phase.

I will also be posting pictures of my projects on this thread to get constructive feedback. Hope to attract couple of more experienced folks to contribute to this thread as well.

Lets fun begin ...

Regards,

[azam1959]

Here is my first multi part project. Wall pieces are not sanded or glued, this is just for testing. I hope picture will show that each wall piece is trapezoidal shape to accomodate inner and outer wall circumferential difference. Not sure if simple 2.5D toolpth will cut trapezoidal shape along the length. Wall pieces are created with high speed machining and base have simple circular outside profile and pocket is done on 20 sided polygon.

as you can see i am not very good with the machining yet. can use some coaching and input; don't worry about finishing/glueing/polishing, i have some experience with that. i lost few wall piece parts and few complete pieces in planner. Also circular profile was too close to the vise jaw and did not want to take any risk with the vise so I have to leave it incomplete. hope i will get better with more experience.

so how can i improve on this one?

edit: never mind ... not able to recreate the issue on the controller. will keep my eyes open for potential mach3 configuration settings but in the mean time i am able to complete the piece. will post the picture of complete project once i am done.

i was making symetrical parts and already made about dozen of them before mill stopped working. i was on g3 command but not sure if G3 is causing the problem. i did see similar behavior on lathe (from same vendor) for arcs and issue was resolved when i made the changes to the gpp files to use the line segments instead of arcs. is there any inventorcam user interface parameter i can change instead of changing the gpp file to instruct invetorcam not to use arcs and use line segments?

i have also posted on vendor's thread to check any other user has seen similar issue.

by the way here is the picture of my cut, i was trying to make 20 trapezoid four inch long pieces to make the wall of almost round container.



thanks

[azam1959]

simple coat hanger. three different parts and four instances of one part. i can add chamfering but fourth axis is on its way it will be few weeks before I can use it and do not have experience to rotate the piece ... want to walk first. except for base all the other pieces are simple profile. for base i think i will need face toolpath but i am hearing time saving in imachining. will do some research. if nothing else, this excercise will give me chance to work on relatively bigger pieces and understand the accuracy and tricks to fit the pieces together. feedback/input/suggestions will be appreciated. ofcourse design took into consideration that i do have long 1 inch thick, 6 in wide wood stocks at hand.

[azam1959]

Made some progress. All the cuts are simple but for post base I had to try different strategies to get optimum cutting time... i must be doing something wrong here, cutting time for imachine and hsm is more then atuo pocket recognition, profile and surface finish I end up using. One pressing issue is to find a way to put in tabs in my cut. As you can see from four pieces of leg extension, one piece came out during machining no harm done and I think I will be able to use it. For the base, picture do have my two attempts. Piece on the left in picture fell down during profiling operation and I had to start the second piece without planning phase which gave me 1/16 inch additional thickness to hold the piece after the cut. Not sure how it will come out in the picture, one side of surface finish quality is pretty bad and reason being support in the bottom was not strong enough to withstand surface finish forces.

By the way, all of these cuts are from Novakon Torus Servo mill and I used 1/4 inch end mill for all the cuts. I tried different cutters in the cam but quality difference was not big enough to worth the effort of tool change and re-zeroing.

if you know how to put tabs, i will like to hear from you. looking for something similar to what Aspire has.

simple coat hanger. three different parts and four instances of one part. i can add chamfering but fourth axis is on its way it will be few weeks before I can use it and do not have experience to rotate the piece ... want to walk first. except for base all the other pieces are simple profile. for base i think i will need face toolpath but i am hearing time saving in imachining. will do some research. if nothing else, this excercise will give me chance to work on relatively bigger pieces and understand the accuracy and tricks to fit the pieces together. feedback/input/suggestions will be appreciated. ofcourse design took into consideration that i do have long 1 inch thick, 6 in wide wood stocks at hand.

[azam1959]

Edit: I see fillet option in profile operation technology page, guess this is my automatic/short cut. there are so many options that i don't think reading the manual will help either. will continue to make the mistake and learn .... of course if I continue to make the same mistake then there is an issue :-) regards.



guess picture will show the issue ... corners are not as sharp as i saw on the cad design and i think it is due to end mill round shape. i will start putting fillets in both male and female joint parts. if there is easy/automatic setting, i am all ears ... you will see inconsistent gaps and this is due to my experimenting with the sanding to find out exact source of gaps.



on a different note ... i had to use router table for longer post part. controller on the router table is different and did not like lines in the beginning of the g code file. i end up editing the post processor to remove few lines at the beginning of file/tool change etc. worked fine with the router table, will use the same post processor for mill but will be careful during first cut. i think g/m code i removed does not apply to me but just in case ...

much more to come ...

Made some progress. All the cuts are simple but for post base I had to try different strategies to get optimum cutting time... i must be doing something wrong here, cutting time for imachine and hsm is more then atuo pocket recognition, profile and surface finish I end up using. One pressing issue is to find a way to put in tabs in my cut. As you can see from four pieces of leg extension, one piece came out during machining no harm done and I think I will be able to use it. For the base, picture do have my two attempts. Piece on the left in picture fell down during profiling operation and I had to start the second piece without planning phase which gave me 1/16 inch additional thickness to hold the piece after the cut. Not sure how it will come out in the picture, one side of surface finish quality is pretty bad and reason being support in the bottom was not strong enough to withstand surface finish forces.

By the way, all of these cuts are from Novakon Torus Servo mill and I used 1/4 inch end mill for all the cuts. I tried different cutters in the cam but quality difference was not big enough to worth the effort of tool change and re-zeroing.

if you know how to put tabs, i will like to hear from you. looking for something similar to what Aspire has.

[azam1959]

making good joints are important for the prototypes I envision ... I did some experiments with fillets and it did not work (first picture). I am sure other folks have faced same issue. I will research on how other folks fixed it and if I could not find anything, I will do some experiments with offsets, may be issue is not fillet but I just need some more space. In the mean time if you have any pointer on how to make good joints on cnc, please share. Also including the completed picture of coat hanger project; not good enough but got good practice out of it.

will be back :-)

Edit: I see fillet option in profile operation technology page, guess this is my automatic/short cut. there are so many options that i don't think reading the manual will help either. will continue to make the mistake and learn .... of course if I continue to make the same mistake then there is an issue :-) regards.



guess picture will show the issue ... corners are not as sharp as i saw on the cad design and i think it is due to end mill round shape. i will start putting fillets in both male and female joint parts. if there is easy/automatic setting, i am all ears ... you will see inconsistent gaps and this is due to my experimenting with the sanding to find out exact source of gaps.



on a different note ... i had to use router table for longer post part. controller on the router table is different and did not like lines in the beginning of the g code file. i end up editing the post processor to remove few lines at the beginning of file/tool change etc. worked fine with the router table, will use the same post processor for mill but will be careful during first cut. i think g/m code i removed does not apply to me but just in case ...

much more to come ...

[azam1959]

ran few tests to make sure that I do understand joint cuts. Bottom line is wood is forgiving and I will not be using any offsets for the joints, instead will be using a mallet to put the joints together.

second learning is that internal joints already have fillet due to cutter radius but external cuts are sharp (see the cut on the left in the picture) and putting a fillet on the external joint corner (check in this case there were four corners which needed attention) make a decent fit (right cut in the picture).

I was using .25 inch endmill and fillets are .125 radius. i put in this fillet manually, cam do have some limit on external corner fillet. i think i will look for the parameter to change the default in pre-processor or may leave it the way it is for now; i will be using a smaller end mill for final pass to reduce the fillet made by the cutter and may be default is good enough.

next project will be simpler with dado and rabbit (hope this is right terminology) cuts to make sure that i do understand any external edge fillet requirement there as well. stay tuned. In the middle of two med changes in the morphine pump (process will last for six months) and for RA/lupus. cnc hobby is doing intended job of getting me out of bed and keep my mind on positive thinking:-)

cheers

making good joints are important for the prototypes I envision ... I did some experiments with fillets and it did not work (first picture). I am sure other folks have faced same issue. I will research on how other folks fixed it and if I could not find anything, I will do some experiments with offsets, may be issue is not fillet but I just need some more space. In the mean time if you have any pointer on how to make good joints on cnc, please share. Also including the completed picture of coat hanger project; not good enough but got good practice out of it.

will be back :-)

[azam1959]

continued with wood joint experiments and am not happy with results with creating external joint fillets to avoid gap. for now, i will take easy route of leaving some space inside to avoid gap outside. i do remember reading that aspire do have some mechanism for this purpose, may be inventor cam also have similar function .... learning

ran few tests to make sure that I do understand joint cuts. Bottom line is wood is forgiving and I will not be using any offsets for the joints, instead will be using a mallet to put the joints together.

second learning is that internal joints already have fillet due to cutter radius but external cuts are sharp (see the cut on the left in the picture) and putting a fillet on the external joint corner (check in this case there were four corners which needed attention) make a decent fit (right cut in the picture).

I was using .25 inch endmill and fillets are .125 radius. i put in this fillet manually, cam do have some limit on external corner fillet. i think i will look for the parameter to change the default in pre-processor or may leave it the way it is for now; i will be using a smaller end mill for final pass to reduce the fillet made by the cutter and may be default is good enough.

next project will be simpler with dado and rabbit (hope this is right terminology) cuts to make sure that i do understand any external edge fillet requirement there as well. stay tuned. In the middle of two med changes in the morphine pump (process will last for six months) and for RA/lupus. cnc hobby is doing intended job of getting me out of bed and keep my mind on positive thinking:-)

cheers

[azam1959]

bit challenging for me but need to try ... in no hurry, giving myself couple of weeks to complete. am able to assemble in inventor => at least angles and size correct. not planning to use any screws or nails ... mechanical joins with glue. will see ... 36.xx60x9.25

isoview.pdf

[azam1959]

long wood pieces weight was a challenge but to my surprise person who was helping me to put the wood on the router table like the product enough that it is not going to fire place.



i still had to use the sanding machine to fit the joints. looked at various options including start using aspire but I really like inventor and will do some experiments with adding a small hole feature to get dog bone fillet effect. back to drawing board, important for me to understand the joints for multipart projects.

bit challenging for me but need to try ... in no hurry, giving myself couple of weeks to complete. am able to assemble in inventor => at least angles and size correct. not planning to use any screws or nails ... mechanical joins with glue. will see ... 36.xx60x9.25

isoview.pdf

[azam1959]

humble feeling that joint understanding took this long. i finally got it. in this picture i am putting four external fillets via inventor and keeping .02 inch gap between two mating joint parts. on going basis if my design is indifferent i will simply set the cam to put external fillets for all the cuts. i will use the setting to half of my cutter dia. i think i will try .01 of gap for glue. took long but i will not forget how to make acceptable joints in future :-)

[yarnairb]

Since nobody else has commented I just wanted to say thank you for documenting your learning process. It was very informative for me since I hope to do similar things in wood when I take the plunge. I have been using inventor for years to design all kinds of things in wood and metal and like the idea of InventorCAM.

[azam1959]

comments are bonus but i do expect to make mistakes and learn ... yesterday i did spend too much time to learn the magic of open link (i think this is the terminology cam use). cutter just pass the open link make the end of dado like joints very clean. i did read about open links somewhere but did not understand the importance till i used it.
thanks for the note Yarnairb.
Edit: i do find it very useful in my situation of rapid prototyping to be able to change the design in the same program instead of two programs and exchanging the files b/w cam and cad programs for each and every change. input for the folks who are invested in inventor and looking for cam solution.

Since nobody else has commented I just wanted to say thank you for documenting your learning process. It was very informative for me since I hope to do similar things in wood when I take the plunge. I have been using inventor for years to design all kinds of things in wood and metal and like the idea of InventorCAM.

[azam1959]

spent some time on name plate. unique point in this project was to use aspire for carving side and inventor/inventorcam for base with 3d facing.


for the next project, i will make another attempt on coat hanger, with a different design and some more expertise under the belt. giving myself 2 weeks to complete this project. there are four unique parts for this project but will be needing two instances of two parts for the bottom of the stand, guess picture will help ... picture is too big .. not worth spending more time on it; will post the project picture in couple of weeks. bye for now.

[azam1959]

i think i just needed some practice ... with time projects are becoming more complex and I certainly hope to continue to learn and challenge myself ... i will not post more on this thread unless somebody want to start interesting discussion here.

before i leave, i want to share following site. site demonstrate efficient wood joints with cnc (i used 2d dxf import in inventor). hope some of you may find this site helpful as well.

50 Digital Wood Joints | Flexible Stream

I do reserve the right to ask dumb questions in future when i switch from wood to metal ...