Carvera has auto prob leveling. Is that something carbide 3d can do with software for the Nomad machines? I imagine with a touch probe and software it can be done. Plus that would help keep pace with a competitor. That would be incredibly helpful for me.
This feature is available in various 3rd party opensource tools such as:
I started out with a Shark before I got my Shapeoko. They had auto leveling. Frankly auto leveling is useless. You need a flat surface to get good results. The auto leveling just finds the lows/high and averages out your surface. So the bottom line is get your material flat before trying to carve on it. You will get a better result. You can use a planner or your Shapeoko planner with a surfacing bit you already own if you have a Shapeoko.
No woodworking project will have a good outcome if your do not have your material flat and level and know how to square things. Woodworkers for centuries.learn about how to level and square stock as one of the first things they learn. There is a reason that traditional has been passed down for centuries to woodworkers. If you adhere to the basics of woodworking most things will fall into line and work for you. When you dont adhere to the basics that is where things go wrong for most people.
While it’s useless for your application it will help my application a lot. My next machine will have it.
Jim, I’m curious what your application is???
While there are a few real world examples that truly benefit from “auto-leveling” or coordinate system rotation & translation, Like very large castings that are difficult to move & may not have any flat index surfaces to align the job. Or 5 axis machines cutting prismatic features on compound angles.
I find that many customers using this technology don’t want to set the job up properly, and want to just toss it on the machine, clamp it down & use the csys rotation to align the toolpaths with the skewed stock.
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I do up to 0.006 inch engraving on precut soft metals. If the metal has a slight bow my engraving will just touch the metal and if slightly high I can break the tip off the tapered carbide engraving bit.
I suspect a feature like that is quite ambitious for Carbide Motion. But you never know, can’t hurt to ask.
In the meantime, can you come up with a clamping system that holds the material flat? Setting your Z height closer to the engraving, like in the center of the part rather than the corner might help if the cup/bow isn’t too extreme.
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