Made My First CNC Parts

[jteneyck]

I'm building another stereo cabinet just like the one I posted a few weeks ago, except this one is designed so that it can be shipped flat packed, ala IKEA, to cut down on shipping costs over sending one fully assembled.  To make it easy for the customer to assemble the cabinet I'm using cabinet bolts and barrel nuts to hold the major members together.  To locate the parts prior to inserting the bolts I decided to use dowels.  I hate dowels because of the accuracy required for them to meet properly in mating parts, and the more dowels needed the higher the probability of problems.  Cutting the holes with a CNC, however, makes it mostly a non-issue.  I ordered a CNC several weeks ago, but it won't be here for several more weeks.  However, I was able to download and install the VCarve software I bought as part of the package, and I've been learning how to use it.  I also have a friend with an Axiom CNC run with Aspire, the big brother of VCarve.  It seemed like a natural fit to cut the parts I need on his machine.  

You can draw directly in VCarve, but it's not a platform where you could easily draw a piece of furniture with multiple parts.  It's really just a 2D platform, one part at a time, environment.  I have used SketchUp for many years and prefer it for drawing.  Fortunately, you can bring parts from SketchUp into VCarve at perfect scale, clean up any problems, and then develop the toolpaths needed to command the CNC.  And that's what I did for the key parts needing dowel holes with the stereo cabinet.  

The overall view of the cabinet in SketchUp looks like this.  



I wanted to cut just the parts for the end frames on the CNC.  After hiding the other parts, I imported the end frame parts into VCarve.  VCarve has specific tools to help importing SketchUp drawings, many features of which I am still exploring (figuring out). Here's what those parts look like in VCarve with the toolpaths shown as well.



Last Saturday I took a piece of 3/4" Baltic birch plywood and a thumb drive with the VCarve files out to my friend's shop.  After he loaded the files onto his PC and checked to see if I had made any fatal mistakes (no fatal ones, just a couple of minor ones that he easily saw and changed), and we had clamped the plywood to the bed of his CNC, we cut the parts.  I had set up the toolpaths to first cut the bolt holes (black), then the dowel holes (green), and finally the profiles to cut out the parts.  Each toolpath ran separately but took only about 12 minutes total to cut out the parts.  All of the toolpaths in this case used a 1/4" spiral endmill.  

Here's a photo while it was cutting the bolt holes all the way through the plywood.

   
And while it was cutting the 1/2" deep dowel holes:



And after it was all done:



The parts are still connected to the plywood sheet with 4 tabs around the perimeter of each part.  Unless you have a vacuum table those are needed so the parts don't rattle around and get trashed as the router cuts through the bottom of the plywood.  You also see about 3/4" between parts for the same reason.  To remove the parts from the sheet I cut through the tabs with my jigsaw and then flushed them with a block plane and sandpaper.  From there is back to more traditional woodworking.  I cut mating mortises in all the parts and joined them with loose tenons.  



I'm sure this all seems like a foreign language to some.  It was to me, too, 4 months ago.  But it's been a blast to learn a new way of woodworking, to let the CNC do what it's really good at, making repetitive parts at very high precision.  I already knew how to draw in SketchUp and I have a background in machine control, so it wasn't all that hard to learn the basics.  I can see all kinds of ways this is going to help my woodworking and expand the things I can do. 

I bought the CNC as much to give myself a new challenge and keep my brain occupied as any other reason.  So far, it's working.  

John

[BrentDH]

John, are you willing to share what you ordered?  Is it a Onefinity?

[jteneyck]

John, are you willing to share what you ordered?  Is it a Onefinity?

Sure.  Yes, it's a OneFinity Journeyman, the largest they offer. It can machine 48" in the X direction (gantry) and 33" in the Y axis, so you can tile on 4 ft sheets of plywood of any length by indexing.  I bought a few extras with it and decided on VCarve Pro software.  You can demo any of Asprire's software for free and it seemed reasonably straightforward so that's what I went with.  It's not a cheap add on but it seemed far more complete than any of the free software I looked at, which one would expect.  The 1F machine was around $3K, and the VCarve Pro added $630 to that.  Tax and shipping and suddenly I was at $4200.   You pay them your money and then do something else for the 10 - 12 weeks before they can build one for you.  I'm about 6 weeks into the wait, hoping to see a shipping notice any day.  

The Onefinity looks to be the most mechanically robust of the hobby type machines out there, and had the footprint I was looking for.  My friend's Axiom is a much more expensive machine, yet when I looked at it the drive is much lighter duty.  Controller wise 1F is not up to the Axiom but as good as any of the more typical hobby machines.  Time will tell if I chose well.  

John

[BrentDH]

I ordered the 32" x 32" Onefinity a little over a year ago.  I got it sometime around April or May.  I also chose the verctric v-carve pro and use Sketchup to do the drawing.  With the smaller machine I was in for closer to $3000 including the vectric software and a Makita palm router.  Sounds like we are on similar paths.  I am very happy with the Onefinity.  The larger version you are getting was not available when I placed my order.  The 32 x 32 was the biggest.  Probably a good thing as I would have just wanted to get the bigger one 
.  I am very much a hobbiest at this point so the number of projects on it are minimal at this point,  Getting closer to retirement in the next couple years and looking forward to having more time to play around with it. 

Here is one of my projects.  It is a game called pegs and jokers.  It is also a perfect application for a cnc machine.  It has 4, 5, or 6 interlocking boards used to play a game similar to Sorry or Aggravation where you use card values to move pegs around a the board.

   

[jteneyck]

I ordered the 32" x 32" Onefinity a little over a year ago.  I got it sometime around April or May.  I also chose the verctric v-carve pro and use Sketchup to do the drawing.  With the smaller machine I was in for closer to $3000 including the vectric software and a Makita palm router.  Sounds like we are on similar paths.  I am very happy with the Onefinity.  The larger version you are getting was not available when I placed my order.  The 32 x 32 was the biggest.  Probably a good thing as I would have just wanted to get the bigger one 
.  I am very much a hobbiest at this point so the number of projects on it are minimal at this point,  Getting closer to retirement in the next couple years and looking forward to having more time to play around with it. 

Here is one of my projects.  It is a game called pegs and jokers.  It is also a perfect application for a cnc machine.  It has 4, 5, or 6 interlocking boards used to play a game similar to Sorry or Aggravation where you use card values to move pegs around a the board.

Glad to hear you're happy with your machine.  Most people seem to be.  In case you didn't know, if you have the Woodworker you can upgrade your machine to a Journeyman if that's of interest.  

You're right; those game boards are a perfect application for a CNC.  And that's something I'm saying more and more as I look at potential projects.  Almost anything I used to do by hand can be done with the CNC and when it involves more than one it's a pretty easy choice.  I draw my projects in SketchUp anyway.  It's not much work to pull it into VCarve and create the toolpaths.  

John

[paul2004]

Nice to see a post of someone using the CNC to make furniture.
I have a homemade CNC (Based off Joe's CNC).. Building your own CNC is a hobby in itself.. although now (about 10 years later), the DIY plans are much better, people have improved things. Still, I think if you want to start cutting, buying one is probably the way to go.
The CNC can replace so many tools. I was able to sell off a dovetail jig, Leigh FMT, mortiser, tennon jig and probably some other tools when mine was done.
I do use the cnc to cut domino slots sometimes, but sometimes the hand held one is easier.
CNC is great for making sliding dovetails when you make solid wood furniture too.
Of course, good for rabbets, dados, etc.
The only thing to remember is.. the CNC gives you a lot more opportunities to make mistakes!

[jteneyck]

Nice to see a post of someone using the CNC to make furniture.
I have a homemade CNC (Based off Joe's CNC).. Building your own CNC is a hobby in itself.. although now (about 10 years later), the DIY plans are much better, people have improved things.  Still, I think if you want to start cutting, buying one is probably the way to go.
The CNC can replace so many tools. I was able to sell off a dovetail jig, Leigh FMT, mortiser, tennon jig and probably some other tools when mine was done.
I do use the cnc to cut domino slots sometimes, but sometimes the hand held one is easier.
CNC is great for making sliding dovetails when you make solid wood furniture too.
Of course, good for rabbets, dados, etc.
The only thing to remember is.. the CNC gives you a lot more opportunities to make mistakes!

Oh I'm sure I'll make some trinkets with it, too, but my primary reason for buying it is for furniture/cabinet making.  You might recall that I make/sell a horizontal router mortiser.  Those parts lend themself beautifully to being cut on the CNC.  It's very cool how VCarve can import all the parts straight from my SketchUp assembly drawing and nest them on the plywood for maximum yield.  

I'm sure you're right about the CNC making it easy to make mistakes.  On the other hand, when I typically design in SketchUp I don't include the joinery because I know I'm going to use loose tenons.  95% of the time the joinery goes fine, but sometimes I find it's not going to work they way I thought, and I have to come up with a work around.  The CNC forces you to think through those joints ahead of time.  I'm hoping for smoother projects.  

Which SketchUp are you using?  I'm using Make 2017.  My initial look at the free web version was not positive.  

John

[paul2004]

Oh I'm sure I'll make some trinkets with it, too, but my primary reason for buying it is for furniture/cabinet making.  You might recall that I make/sell a horizontal router mortiser.  Those parts lend themself beautifully to being cut on the CNC.  It's very cool how VCarve can import all the parts straight from my SketchUp assembly drawing and nest them on the plywood for maximum yield.  

I'm sure you're right about the CNC making it easy to make mistakes.  On the other hand, when I typically design in SketchUp I don't include the joinery because I know I'm going to use loose tenons.  95% of the time the joinery goes fine, but sometimes I find it's not going to work they way I thought, and I have to come up with a work around.  The CNC forces you to think through those joints ahead of time.  I'm hoping for smoother projects.  

Which SketchUp are you using?  I'm using Make 2017.  My initial look at the free web version was not positive.  

John

Most of my parts are 2d cut outs, but I draw them directly in Aspire (you can do it in Vcarve too).
I usually draw it by hand (or make a list of rectangles to cut out) and then draw them.
I am not as organized as you are with sketchup.

Yea, i have seen your router table mortiser.. that's a nice product.
The CNC really saves time on projects that you cut multiple times. You will enjoy that.

My most common mistake is forgetting to rezero the Z azis.. I am a lot better at it now though.. IT takes a while to get the "to do list" memorized.

There's so much cool stuff you can do with it..  I made custom crown molding for my kitchen, with rope molding carved in it.. It took a long time to cut, but it was kind of cool to have something unique.. I got a drag knife for it, I Am going to attempt to cut out marquetry pieces with it. Not sure how well it will work, but I am going to try it.

[Rob Young]

Most of my parts are 2d cut outs, but I draw them directly in Aspire (you can do it in Vcarve too).
I usually draw it by hand (or make a list of rectangles to cut out) and then draw them.
I am not as organized as you are with sketchup.

Yea, i have seen your router table mortiser.. that's a nice product.
The CNC really saves time on projects that you cut multiple times. You will enjoy that.

My most common mistake is forgetting to rezero the Z azis.. I am a lot better at it now though.. IT takes a while to get the "to do list" memorized.

There's so much cool stuff you can do with it..  I made custom crown molding for my kitchen, with rope molding carved in it.. It took a long time to cut, but it was kind of cool to have something unique.. I got a drag knife for it, I Am going to attempt to cut out marquetry pieces with it. Not sure how well it will work, but I am going to try it.

Depending on what you have as your gcode sender (LinuxCNC will, grbl won't) you can have a message displayed after a gcode command.

Text in parenthesis after a command should appear in a pop-up. 

So if you modify the generator script to add a pause command (M0 or M1, I forget which is pause, which is resume) and a message you will be reminded each time.

I use Carbide Create's version of grbl as my sender and while it won't show the message (I tried) it does display a message box with each tool change. The gcode creation script I run in the Vectric software knows that I have a bit of kit called a "bitsetter" which helps to automatically re-zero after each change.

[FS7]

Not cheap by any means, but that's not nearly as expensive as I thought it would be. I suppose if you have the need, it makes a lot more sense. Have you tried using it to flatten panels or slabs?