I just finished my T-track spoilboard. I used an aluminum base this time. Took time to drill and tap the holes, but it’s really sturdy. Sharing your video on my page.
Just got a 3018 Pro for my birthday the other day, and just finished cutting out one of the test files.. Been watching your vids for a while now and am pretty happy with the results and your vids have helped soooo much to get mine all tuned in... Going to get some MDF tomorrow to make my own spoil board for when my surfacing bit comes :)
Great video. I have the MK2, actually it's classified as MK2.5 now that I've added the Super Longboard and the new anti-backlash nuts. I'm excited to be receiving my water-cooled 80mm spindle tomorrow from PWNCNC. I also have the 4th axis device from Sienci. I've been contemplating how to go on my spoilboard after watching a multitude of TH-cam videos on the subject. There are a few additional/different things that I plan to do. I want to place the T-tracks 90º (horizontally) from everyone else's location. The reason being, I can remove one of the slats and replace it with the mounted 4th axis device when necessary. I also plan on cutting dados into each board as a hold-down for the T-tracks. The screws holding the T-track down can easily be pulled out or the track can flex if not held down by other means when applying a lot of pressure. Additionally, I'm thinking of cutting dog holes and t-nuts (not threaded inserts that can pull out). Any additional ideas?
Sounds like a good plan. But I would say is if your clamps are setup correctly then you shouldn't need to apply that much pressure to bend the track or pull the screws out. Like the idea of the horizontal slat for the 4th axis
If you use, say a 1" diameter surfacing bit, the area that it surfaces would actually be 1/2" (or 1/2 the diameter of the bit cutting area) outside the dimensions that you marked when you found your machine limits. Your spoilboard could be 1/4" or 3/8" outside of your machine limits (to account for any out of square cutting or installing crooked of your spoilboard) and that area would still be surfaced and not be a "pocket". Then when you put grid reference lines on the spoilboard they would also show the actual machine cutting limits. Maybe just being "nit-pickey". LOL. Another good informative video BTW.
Not at all, this is about my 4th or 5th spoilboard video and most of them I do go larger than the work area but that's usually the part that causes people the most issues with tripping limit switches so I simplified it down a bit for the this one
Thank you for your excellent presentation. Considering that the gantry is so wide, what happens if the spindle is very close to one end and while working, one stepper motor is overrloaded and stalls but the other one still working and move the other end? In that case the gantry will rotate, lose parralelism with X and the guiding mechanisms for Y axis may be damaged. Thank you for your answer
If one of your motors stalls then either your motor is failing, you're pushing the machine too hard or something is not actually setup correctly and there is too much resistance. Usually this would not causing damage to the machine but you will get some bad noises. In any case, you would need to try and diagnose what caused it and also reset the X axis gantry
Nice video, but one possible mistake I noticed with your setup is the wooden bench that the whole CNC is mounted on. Wood is very sensitive to humidity and its temperature sensitivity is different to that of the metal frame of your CNC. This means that on hot/cold or humid/dry days the whole setup will buckle, making the spoilboard surfacing job useless. Although inconvenient to do after the fact, I would most definitely transfer the whole thing to a metal frame.
Thanks James! What are your thoughts on NOT surfacing the spoil board but only surface the wood for each project? I thought since you should surface the work piece, then what's the point of surfacing the spoil board too. Newbie here, feel free to correct this thinking.
Not a machinist here but as far as I understand, facing operations basically make the surface pointing up parallel to the cnc gantry. So if your spoilboard is not faced, and you face your part then you are only making sure the top part of your piece is parallel, and for example if you flip it over and face the back side, both faces wouldn't be parallel
Is there a solution for mdf spoil boards thats been faced. Mdf gets “fuzzy” after being faced and doesnt like tape. Almost all my projects require a 2 sided tape method, no tape likes fuzzy bits of a faced mdf
If we assume that MDF is perfectly flat and has a constant thickness because of the way it's manufactured, I would put plywood first, surface it and then use an MDF spoilboard on top of it.
@ it’s definitely not perfectly flat, in my experience it can be +- .050 to .090 and higher off in a multitude of spots on one sheet of 4x4. Fine for woodworking but not when a project needs to be within.005. Not that im saying these hobbies machines will ever get to that precision. No sheet lumber is perfect flat. Must be faced. The paper fuzz on mdf doesnt like tape. Since the genius of cncs here didnt answer, the way around the fuzz is a couple light coats of polyurethane
Thanks, I have a Genmitsu 4030 and looking for a way to lower the spoil board and bed to do do thicker projects, seen your where it’s pretty much open and thought if I can support mine like that , I could make something work for lower work surface.
i got something strange happening. i use vcarve and gsender. I load the file into gsender and zero to the corner of the wood i am gone use. When i start the job, it seems like it go about 10mm ( Y ) up and 10mm ( X) to the right then it starts carving. Why do it do this? I have looked in the settings of gsender and i can not find anything about it
It's likely doing this based on the diameter of your bit. For example if its a 20mm diameter bit then it's thinking that's where it needs to start. Easiest ways to solve this (if in V carve) is draw the rectangul slightly bigger than you need or set the bit size to be smaller and subsequently increase the stepover to allow for the difference
In my opinion this is a wrong way to tram the spindle and surface the spoilboard. The right sequence is to tram the spindle and after that to surface the spoilboard. And to tram the spindle you need a surface reference. Something like in this video th-cam.com/video/FzFPadoZH5Q/w-d-xo.html. Of course you can use your jig like it is or with a dial indicator.
Valid point - I try to keep my videos as simple as possible. Marks methods adds extra steps but does allow you to tram first and surface later. I suppose I could have been clearer in my video. Ill add a comment in the description about this.
Thanks James. Your videos are perfect for us 'newbies'. Informative and concisely explained.
Merci James . Superbe vidéos ( comme tout ce que vous faîtes). 🤩💪💪
I just finished my T-track spoilboard. I used an aluminum base this time. Took time to drill and tap the holes, but it’s really sturdy. Sharing your video on my page.
Excellent. Thank you :)
WOW, you have a new workshop, looks nice.
Thank you. Needed a little more than my garden shed
Just got a 3018 Pro for my birthday the other day, and just finished cutting out one of the test files.. Been watching your vids for a while now and am pretty happy with the results and your vids have helped soooo much to get mine all tuned in... Going to get some MDF tomorrow to make my own spoil board for when my surfacing bit comes :)
Excellent. Glad its going good 😁
Looking forward to more videos using the MK2.
YES!!!! 👍👍👍👍
You and me both!
@JamesDeanDesigns Well....get busy then!! 😁😁
This was super helpful, thank you!!
You're so welcome!
Great video. I have the MK2, actually it's classified as MK2.5 now that I've added the Super Longboard and the new anti-backlash nuts. I'm excited to be receiving my water-cooled 80mm spindle tomorrow from PWNCNC. I also have the 4th axis device from Sienci. I've been contemplating how to go on my spoilboard after watching a multitude of TH-cam videos on the subject. There are a few additional/different things that I plan to do. I want to place the T-tracks 90º (horizontally) from everyone else's location. The reason being, I can remove one of the slats and replace it with the mounted 4th axis device when necessary. I also plan on cutting dados into each board as a hold-down for the T-tracks. The screws holding the T-track down can easily be pulled out or the track can flex if not held down by other means when applying a lot of pressure. Additionally, I'm thinking of cutting dog holes and t-nuts (not threaded inserts that can pull out). Any additional ideas?
Sounds like a good plan. But I would say is if your clamps are setup correctly then you shouldn't need to apply that much pressure to bend the track or pull the screws out.
Like the idea of the horizontal slat for the 4th axis
If you use, say a 1" diameter surfacing bit, the area that it surfaces would actually be 1/2" (or 1/2 the diameter of the bit cutting area) outside the dimensions that you marked when you found your machine limits. Your spoilboard could be 1/4" or 3/8" outside of your machine limits (to account for any out of square cutting or installing crooked of your spoilboard) and that area would still be surfaced and not be a "pocket". Then when you put grid reference lines on the spoilboard they would also show the actual machine cutting limits. Maybe just being "nit-pickey". LOL. Another good informative video BTW.
Not at all, this is about my 4th or 5th spoilboard video and most of them I do go larger than the work area but that's usually the part that causes people the most issues with tripping limit switches so I simplified it down a bit for the this one
Thank you for your excellent presentation. Considering that the gantry is so wide, what happens if the spindle is very close to one end and while working, one stepper motor is overrloaded and stalls but the other one still working and move the other end? In that case the gantry will rotate, lose parralelism with X and the guiding mechanisms for Y axis may be damaged. Thank you for your answer
If one of your motors stalls then either your motor is failing, you're pushing the machine too hard or something is not actually setup correctly and there is too much resistance. Usually this would not causing damage to the machine but you will get some bad noises. In any case, you would need to try and diagnose what caused it and also reset the X axis gantry
Great video! Thank you!
Thank you as always Richard 🙏
Nice video, but one possible mistake I noticed with your setup is the wooden bench that the whole CNC is mounted on. Wood is very sensitive to humidity and its temperature sensitivity is different to that of the metal frame of your CNC. This means that on hot/cold or humid/dry days the whole setup will buckle, making the spoilboard surfacing job useless. Although inconvenient to do after the fact, I would most definitely transfer the whole thing to a metal frame.
Thanks James! What are your thoughts on NOT surfacing the spoil board but only surface the wood for each project? I thought since you should surface the work piece, then what's the point of surfacing the spoil board too. Newbie here, feel free to correct this thinking.
Not a machinist here but as far as I understand, facing operations basically make the surface pointing up parallel to the cnc gantry. So if your spoilboard is not faced, and you face your part then you are only making sure the top part of your piece is parallel, and for example if you flip it over and face the back side, both faces wouldn't be parallel
Where can I find those end caps for the linear rails that mount to the table?
They came with the machine
Is there a solution for mdf spoil boards thats been faced. Mdf gets “fuzzy” after being faced and doesnt like tape. Almost all my projects require a 2 sided tape method, no tape likes fuzzy bits of a faced mdf
If we assume that MDF is perfectly flat and has a constant thickness because of the way it's manufactured, I would put plywood first, surface it and then use an MDF spoilboard on top of it.
@ it’s definitely not perfectly flat, in my experience it can be +- .050 to .090 and higher off in a multitude of spots on one sheet of 4x4. Fine for woodworking but not when a project needs to be within.005. Not that im saying these hobbies machines will ever get to that precision. No sheet lumber is perfect flat. Must be faced. The paper fuzz on mdf doesnt like tape. Since the genius of cncs here didnt answer, the way around the fuzz is a couple light coats of polyurethane
Hello, I was watching this and noticed your mounts you have for your rails. Are those something that can be bought ? Or made?
Thanks
Do you mean the black plastic ones in the middle of the rails? These came with the machine. Not sure if they sold separately to be honest
Thanks, I have a Genmitsu 4030 and looking for a way to lower the spoil board and bed to do do thicker projects, seen your where it’s pretty much open and thought if I can support mine like that , I could make something work for lower work surface.
i got something strange happening. i use vcarve and gsender. I load the file into gsender and zero to the corner of the wood i am gone use. When i start the job, it seems like it go about 10mm ( Y ) up and 10mm ( X) to the right then it starts carving. Why do it do this? I have looked in the settings of gsender and i can not find anything about it
It's likely doing this based on the diameter of your bit. For example if its a 20mm diameter bit then it's thinking that's where it needs to start. Easiest ways to solve this (if in V carve) is draw the rectangul slightly bigger than you need or set the bit size to be smaller and subsequently increase the stepover to allow for the difference
In my opinion this is a wrong way to tram the spindle and surface the spoilboard. The right sequence is to tram the spindle and after that to surface the spoilboard. And to tram the spindle you need a surface reference. Something like in this video th-cam.com/video/FzFPadoZH5Q/w-d-xo.html. Of course you can use your jig like it is or with a dial indicator.
Valid point - I try to keep my videos as simple as possible. Marks methods adds extra steps but does allow you to tram first and surface later. I suppose I could have been clearer in my video. Ill add a comment in the description about this.
@@JamesDeanDesigns do's and dont's