I have been making wooden boxes and turning wooden bowls for years now. I felt like a CNC machine might add value to the things I was making. It would also allow me to scratch the technological production itch that had been nagging at me since the day I toured the Waterford crystal site in Ireland a few years ago. Yes, it is true. There is at least one 5-axis machine cutting designs in crystal there.
I have had a keen interest in “garage” CNC for the past several years, eye-balling the various hobbyist models, and started giving machine ownership some serious consideration. I settled in on the Shapeoko around February of this year, lurking for months in the community to validate my decision on the Carbide3D brand. Summer drew near and I finally decided (about 95-ish%) to make the purchase. I had a vacation scheduled, as well as a heavy load at work that would keep me busy until late in July. So, July would be the month that I would pull the trigger. That is, until one fateful day in June.
I sat up in bed that morning, in no real hurry to start the day. I had the day off from work. The honey-do list was surprisingly short. The day was mine to schedule as I saw fit. Still in bed, I grabbed my phone to do the usual things we do with phones these days; check messages and missed calls, read some news, watch a YouTube CNC video, the usual stuff. I got a sudden brain-poke that made me take a look at the Carbide3D website. I gasped at what I saw. Black Friday in June at C3D! The offer included a free router, endmill, and a BitSetter, with the purchase of the machine. I battled the thought of having the machine, and the aforementioned extras, just stacked up in my garage for a month, without the time to do much with either. I’d also give up the “30-days-on-us” protection that C3D offers. Hmmmm…
In the end, the sale package was the deciding factor. The deal was budget-friendly enough to outweigh my other concerns. The Shapeoko 4 XXL was ordered and the goods landed at my garage door just four days later. The “goods” included additional purchases (on sale at a 15% discount) of a BitZero, collets, and mill/bit starter pack. BitRunner was on my list, but unavailable at the time. I would have liked to get the discount there, but did order one later, when the “BitRunner now in stock” notification was sent out a couple of months later.
I built the machine, a few minutes at a time, over the next four days. Though the build was relatively intuitive, I did have to disassemble and reassemble a few times to move forward during the assembly. At the time, the instructions did not exist as anything more than bouncing back and forth between a combination of Winston Moy’s assembly video and the Pro assembly PDF. There were some gaps between the two. Given that, I only had to compose one email to support. They were very quick to respond with a draft version of the instruction manual, though I had already worked through the trouble on my own. All told, I spent about eight hours building the unit. I plugged her in, checked for control response and range of motion, and then set off to run “Hello World.” It was an anxious moment for me. I wanted to have a successful run here. It was time for bed, my vacation time had started and I was to board a flight in 6 hours…Mission accomplished!
It wasn’t perfect, but more than acceptable. This project is a great introduction to the machine and software. Not to mention that it’s really cool to see the machine make a drawing in my garage!
The vacation went as many do, a great time and not nearly lasting long enough. Once home and unpacked and ready to return to the grind, I was able to make some time for drawing and machining.
First cuts:
Obligatory (?) bit and tool organizer and revision. Neither are in service due to impracticality:
My first sign. ½” x 3 ¾” x 4 ¾” speed chart/sanding block/tape burnisher:
My second sign. For a co-worker that’s into swamp meat… yeah, really:
My third sign. For a school teacher, who likes giving assignments… including honey-do lists:
She also wanted some anchors, to suit a classroom theme. I found this 7” tall anchor at the store.
She said, “Bigger.” So, I made these 15” for her… if only it were that easy with other things.
Threaded insert spoilboard with grid lines:
Tablet/bookholder found in CutRocket:
Countertop K-cup holder prototype:
Seahorse, because my mother loves them and she deserved a great birthday present. The idea started as a woodblock printing, something I still have never done. Purchased a digital file, edited it for cnc, generated some cuts and trialed on MDF. The results impressed me enough to make a carving in oak. The wood is from a cluster of 100-year-old trees that, until 4 years ago, stood on my parent’s property. They had to be taken down due to insect and fungal damage. (The trees, not my parents)
Halloween goodies:
I have seen some excellent work done on aluminum. I’ve thought that some aluminum work may even be in my future. Well, I have done some inadvertent aluminum milling already. I had an unexpected confrontation with the hybrid table, likely due to a zero error. Early-on, I was trying to establish a workflow routine and ended up with this:
The endmill plunged down through my material and commenced to milling the wasteboard and aluminum bed for a few seconds. I shut it down right away, but not before the bit had sacrificed its cutting edges, rendering it useless. Unfortunately, this happened on day 31 of ownership, outside of the “30-days-on-us” policy that Carbide3D offers. I salvaged the material, but I was out the #102 endmill that came in the starter pack. Chalk it up as a learning opportunity and an experience to avoid in the future. The future looks bright with my Shapeoko 4!
That’s my 90-day Shapeoko story. Technically, I’ve owned my Shapeoko for 120 days, so that’s my “90-day Shapeoko use” story. It has been full of light-bulb moments and some wtf? moments. The hands-on process, from designing to drawing to machining, was all new to me. It’s STILL new to me. I am still making mistakes. But I am making progress. I am making plenty of chips. I am creating (in my own mind) some interesting projects.
I think all of the following thoughts have been covered over and over in other posts, but here are some things, in no particular order, that I’ve learned as a new user:
If you’ve decided to add a CNC router to your toolkit, buy a machine and get to it. I’m glad that I didn’t wait any longer than I did. I feel confident in recommending the Shapeoko 4.
Run “Hello World”, then start cutting something… anything. Your skills and knowledge will improve with every project, no matter how simple or small.
CNC routers don’t run on magic. They run on graphic design and toolpath construction. Practice both to get the results you expect.
Respect the value of solid work-holding practices. Your material is meant to be fixed in place and stay in place. If your material moves, ugly things can happen.
Test cut your files to verify your design and simulation results. For us new users, that’s pretty much every job in the beginning.
MDF machines really well… at a cost. Volumes of dust goes everywhere! Masks and dust collection are essential.
Join, or at least lurk, the Carbide Community forum. Brilliant minds are at work here. There is so much to learn from the folks who have been at it a while.
Monitor your job in process. Be ready to pause or stop the job. The machine usually does what you tell it to do, even if you tell it to do something that will wreck your material or your machine.
There is more, but this has gone on long enough. I have shared these experiences here in an effort to give some small thing back to the community that has helped me and so many others become better at CNC machining.
Rob
