I think the health risks produced by dust is more important than the hassles created by the dust boot. Everyone got the own circumstances. For me dust collection is a must nor only because dust is bad for my health but also because of the shop location inside my house.
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It’s not a hassle; it’s a safety issue. I believe rapid machine/tool movements to areas off the workpiece should only be initiated by the operator so he/she is prepared for that movement (possibly with a finger poised over the OFF button). Automatic rapid movement could be made a configuration item left to the preferences of the operator.
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You’re cutting brass (right?). Try cutting MDF, plywood, or even solid wood and you will slowly grow a thin layer of dust on everything in your shop.
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Try cutting African Padauk wood. More dense than mahogany and rust-orange in color. I have a thin layer of rust-orange on everything.
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It’s obvious that some folks LOVE their dust boots 
Thats the great thing about owning your own tools and shop.
We’re our own boss, and can operate any way we see fit.
I’ve been in more than one OSHA movie for not being safe.
You know, those ones where the forklift is holding the forklift that is holding the manlift that is holding the pipe welder in the air
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It’s not a hassle; it’s a safety issue. I believe rapid machine/tool movements to areas off the workpiece should only be initiated by the operator so he/she is prepared for that movement
Exactly this. Specifically for the newbie to the world of automated machining (I’m in this bucket). Nothing is more alarming than the machine doing something uncommanded, without explanation. My S3XXL retreats to the left-rear corner of the machine following a job. Why there? Why not home? Why not just retract Z?
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I think all these “controversies” are just the nature of the beast. The Shapeoko 3 is a kit. Carbide Create and Carbide Motion are not totally completed software. They are still growing and yet to fully evolve into the butterflies they are imagined to be. Right now they are really good catapillers. But like all catapilars each one must be raised in an environment suitable for their growth. Since many of us have never raised catepilers it is hard and confusing why they react to different settings in their environment (our particular methods of machining). Cattepellers have nerves which we can not see just like our shapeokoes have computer coded reactions built into their programing which most of us can not see (understand). Since we are not the “entropologists” (programmers) who have gene spliced a high end cattapeller with an everyday moth we can only wonder what that “entropologist” was thinking when he morphed a monarch with a moth and got a Shapeoko. He knows what he did and we are only teaching it to fly but it doesn’t have it’s wings yet. That’s became our job when we each bought our Shapeoko “kit”. Appearently this forum doesn’t have spell check because I keep spelling caterpiler differently and it never tells me which one is correctt. Well thats another thing I have to figure out.
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That is a lot of ways to spell caterpillar.
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My opinion on this: CAM software and gcode should handle machine’s motion. The controller UI should do only what the user tells it to do. The only time the machine should be automated is when it’s running the code that I told it to. If I break something, I want it to be my fault. I’m usually smarter than my tools.
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caterpillar , hey Phil, it didn’t turn “red” . I wonder if I’ll ever need to spell “that” again ???
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Spelling is not my strong suit, you’d have fooled me had you stuck to just a single spelling (right or wrong).
My spelling is so poor that I’ll often purposely misspell words to make sure my spelling checking is working.
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I have to agree with @mikep, the thrust of the Carbide3D software tools are to quickly get beginners started, provide robust functionality for the product as shipped, and potentially as a kickoff point to move forward with more sophisticated options if required. We shouldn’t expect Carbide Motion to be as configurable as Mach 4 and similarly Carbide Create should not evolve into something powerful and confusing like Fusion 360 with associated price points. I love my FreeCAD/MeshCAM/CM and CC/CM workflows and really appreciate the easy ramp into CNC but am hitting some limitations given the nature of what I machine and am progressing into a Fusion 360/CM workflow and fully expect to replace CM with another g-code sender (probably to support a custom touch probe and auto levelling) at some point.
That being said if there is a brilliant solution that does not add to user complexity, options, or degrade the out-of-the-box experience I would be all for it.
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I agree with you 100%. Simplicity is good especially for beginners. But the issue we are discussing here is safety which can not be put aside in favor of simplicity.
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Simplicity and consistency are both important factors that play into safety. That’s why the specific point I made was about how the machine ‘ends’ the job differently depending on a successful completion or a cancellation and I think either is fine but it should be the same. I can’t imagine there’s a strong argument FOR it being different other than “it’s the way CC/CM have done it in the past”.
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That’s also true and lead me to my other question: Why do we need to home the machine every time we finish a job?. Is it that crucial that the software has to do it automatically?. Just a thought
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The machine doesn’t know if it has lost steps or no, and homing again is the only way that we can be certain of starting from a known position.
A lot of this would be a lot easier if we were using some sort of positional encoder — but that’s not a feasible option at this pricepoint/volume. See the LoboCNC for the story of parts availability &c.
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Agree, but we can perform a successful milling operation without homing. Maybe I am wrong, but it is my understanding that all the carving operations are referenced to zero not to home. In any case, if the machine has lost a step or not, the operator should start a homing cycle to “tune the machine” once in a while.
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I completely agree… this should be a user option.
I cannot think of any reason why homing must be automatically initiated after a job completes… can someone else weigh in?
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The machine remembers my zero settings, even if I unplug it and move things manually. So yeah, maybe the homing feature is some kind of unnecessary. I hardly notice it though, and like how the machine checks the tool each time.
maybe in the future, we could have “set tool” and “check XY zero location” buttons.
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I think it’s not so much the machine (Shapeoko) but the program written for it. CM seems to require it so I would use it, there are other programs that ignor homing completely and they don’t require homing and the spindle stops, raises and returns to zero when completed. I don’t use CM but I am trilled with the Shapeoko’s simplicity and reliablenessability (my kind of word) . The Shapeoko as a kit was the best idea and keeping it as a kit and not some overgrown , takes a college degree to understand over programmed complicated and out of the reach of hobby enthusists is the most important aspect that needs to be maintained for the growth of Carbide3D and the hobby CNC community in general. This allows competition and other hobby programmers to produce alternative cnc programs that work because the machine is simple, reliable and the best machine for hobbists as long as being capable for precision work like that shown by Rich C…Just my thoughts.
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