I am struggling with the programing side of my Shapeoko XXL. Is there an actual place where I can go to learn in person or a mentor list that are willing to assist 1 on 1?
Yes, I have watched every tutorial I can find more than once.
Yes, I am in constant email with Shapeoko…
I live in south Texas.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
2 Likes
if the forum and videos are not enough… (different people learn in different ways; so totally understand… there have been times early on where I wondered if I could hire someone local to help with my machine on the physical side)
I can suggest looking for a local wood workers guild…
the one here in portland (OR) has special classes and groups for CNC users…
1 Like
That a good idea and I appreciate your response. Thank you sir.
Hi @Engine1,
Until you find someone locally, feel free to ask any and all questions here, however simple you think they might be, there will always be someone to answer in a friendly way. I promise.
It’s not as efficient as having someone by your side at the machine, but it’s the second best thing.
Have you had a look at the shapeoko ebook to get a grasp of the workflow and toolpath basics ?
I really don’t mean this in a “go read this or that” way, just as a potential mean for you to wrap your head around a few things to better understand what is going on in the CNC process, which can be very confusing at first.
If you feel like it, drop a series of points/questions you are struggling with here, and we may be able to help (but then again, if you find a local guild, all the better!)
2 Likes
I’m no where near ready to even move over to carbide motion…
The embarassing thing is I was a machinist 30 years ago and could program cnc mill and lathe like a champ but it was all plus or minus numbers… The new easier ways are rough boomers. lol
I will deff look into the ebook and really appreciate all the encouragement
1 Like
well that is actually good … you will have a feeling for the physical side of what happens… all you need to figure out is how to translate what you want into convincing the computer to let you do that.
I don’t know if you used gcode or something similar back then, but if you did… it’s still the same underneath 
2 Likes
@Engine1 Got an example of what your end goal is?
1 Like
I will note that if you wanted to directly work with the machine you could use a pre-processor such as Gsharp:
and program in G-Code (not using a pre-processor and directly working with Grbl is an exercise in tedium due to the lack of loops and variables).
1 Like