I would love to try to cut the calendar. Key word is try. Where would one download the files?
There is a lot of the backlit LED sign and lithophane work going on in the vectric.com/forums that will be worth looking for. I haven't gotten into that yet but probably will someday. Look in the Vcarve Pro and PhotoVcarve forums, and use the site search tool. Search this site also.
Some of the more recent boxes I've made photos haven't been uploaded to my web pages yet. They are here in my two machine build logs if you go back through them.
CarveOne
http://www.carveonecncwoodcraft.com
I would love to try to cut the calendar. Key word is try. Where would one download the files?
You can download the files from CarveOne website.
http://www.carveonecncwoodcraft.com
In the download folder of my website are Aztec calendar files for a Vcarve project.
There are also Mayan Haab calendar files for 2D Vcarve, a 3D version for Aspire, and a 3D gcode only file if you don't have Aspire and want to try the 3D version.
Have fun with them.
CarveOne
http://www.carveonecncwoodcraft.com
Finished making a rotary 4th axis. 276oz-in stepper connected to a 11:1 gear head from Harmonic Drive Systems. It's pretty accurate with minimal backlash. With 10microstep gecko stepper drive, it works out to be about 61 steps per degree of rotation.
Lots of torque too. I can't stop the rotation by hand. This should be good enough for 4th axis rotary carving.
Right now, I put it on my cnc micro mill since I need to hook up another stepper drive to the big Gantry cnc.
That looks pretty slick! Which HD gearhead did you use? They have a large array, some with shafts on both ends, or with a flange on one side, or a collar for a motor shaft. What kind of chuck is that, and how does it attach to the gearhead? Did you use a flexible coupling for the motor, or just count on aligning it accurately?
Are you going to provide a tailstock to support the far end of your workpiece?
Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com
The gear head is this one. I just made a plate to mount the 3 jaw chuck on my lathe. The gear head had a built in coupler to connect to a nema 23 1/4" shaft so it was really easy to hookup.
My brother purchased it from eBay. I'm not sure how much but it was under $100.
The listed backlash is less than 1 arc-min and rated max torque is 133lbs-in.
I have an even bigger gear head if find this one to be to small. That one requires a nema34 with 3/8" shaft.
I can use the tail stock from my mini lathe. The 3jaw is leftover from my mini lathe when I upgraded to a bigger 3jaw. I also have a larger 4jaw chuck that I can put on too.
PVC tube carving
Last edited by jfong; 11-08-2013 at 01:07 PM.
Spent the afternoon making a diamond drag tool for the CNC. Bought the 120 degree diamond drag tip from
Diamond Drag & Rotating Engravers by J & M Diamond Tool, Inc.
Just a 1/2" drill rod that was bored out and fitted with a smaller 1/4" drill rod.
First test engraving was in a scrap piece of 1/8" plexiglass from home depot at 30ipm speed. Text was very sharp and well defined. I plan to engrave the beer mugs at the bar with the company logo using the rotary 4th axis I finished building last week.
I made this drag knife cutter awhile ago. Here's a short video of it in action.
Simple construction, X-acto blade knife holder mounted in a housing with two skateboard bearing so it can freely swivel. A snapped off corner of a razor blade is used as the cutter. Works great for cutting vinyl lettering on the CNC.
Was doing a wood carving and the gantry x-axis lost position/steps. Took me a few minutes to figure out the stepper coupler had snapped. I bought these helical couplers on eBay for about $7 each. That's what you get for buying low quality. I had a spare in stock so a few minutes to remove the stepper motor and install replacement coupler. Time to find better motor couplers before it happens again.
A couple of simple vcarve gifts.
The table coasters are aspen, a type of wood I never used before. It carves very cleanly with sharp definition. It doesn't take stain very well. I used a cherry gel stain and topped it off with Minwax manor oak wipe on varnish to give it more color.
The anarchy plaque was Vcarved and then filled in with black gloss paint.
Hi Richard,
Thanks! I would have to pull up the gcode to verify what bit I used but looking at the video I shot, it looks like I used the 60 degree 1/2" diameter v-bit. I bought that from mlcs for around $15. I think a lot has to do with the quality of the MDF used. Some of the mdf I have doesn't carve very well. The stuff I used for the Aztec seemed heavier. Looking at the grain structure, it seems to have finer particles. I don't recall if it was Home Depot or lowes that I purchased it from. The last 4x8 mdf I purchase a month ago from Home Depot didn't carve nearly as nice.
The MDF I use comes from Lowes. It's denser on the surface than in the inner portions and usually gives pretty good results. Not sure that all Lowes locations get it from the same manufacturer.
CarveOne
http://www.carveonecncwoodcraft.com
I noticed the skin of my MDF is getting somewhat gummy from being in my shop for the last week. I believe it's soaking up some of the humidity because light surface details don't show up as well and the MDF seems to shred/tear more now on shallow cuts than it used to. Deeper cuts look great.
I have been enjoying your website. You have done some very nice work. Is the basket weave something you created or grabbed or is it something built into Aspire?
I'm running VcarvePro 6.x now and I trying to decide if I want to spend the extra $$ on Aspire as a hobbyist or not.
Richard
On the Aztec carving I did, I put a couple of coats of poly before i carved it. CarveOne had mentioned to do that and it seemed to help a lot. I used a water based poly since that was what I had on hand. Minwax polycrylic was the brand.