I had downloaded the Carbide Create software prior to buying the machine and messed with it for at least a week. So after I ordered I was very anxious for it to arrive and had some projects ready to go. Upon assembling the machine I did not know that it would come with the “Built By” sticker. instead of writing on it I grabbed an engraving tool and my micrometer and designed my signature. I did not center the zero correctly and learned a lesson on getting that correct. but thought that I did a ok job for my first project on day one. I did several projects and then I designed a drawer organizer for all the Carbide tools
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I have made some mistakes on both of these projects but have learned from them and will continue to learn and improve and have fun. I wish I would have bought one of these machines 20 years ago!
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Glad to hear you’re having fun, there’s a whole lot more fun waiting for you ! It’s been 5 years since I got my Shapeoko, I thought that over time it would become “just a tool”, but I must admit I’m still having fun just running it and staring at a job running.
The drawer organizer is kind of a rite of passage, so welcome (again) to the club 
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It’s really amazing to me the prices that they have become available at — I can still remember first reading about CNC over 4 decades ago — the Navy was testing out machines to put on larger ships so as to be able to make hardware and parts and not need to stock multiples of everything.
The Enhanced Machine Controller being released to the public domain in 2000 was a huge thing and then Simen Svale Skogsrud writing an interpreter for G-code (Grbl) pretty much made everything possible, including a small machine which got its start in 2009:
but it wasn’t for sale until 2011:
@edwardrford and the other founders really should write a book documenting all this stuff — I’m sure it would be better than Jerry Kaplan’s StartUp, which is one of my favourites, and one which anyone involved in technology should read:
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I’m in the same path… playing around with the software while waiting for the new machine to arrive. Enjoy it!
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