Got my Shapeoko late yesterday and started putting it together. No problems, excellent instructions. Really looking forward to making dust.
Julien, I’m reading your treatise on CNC/Shapeoko and I love all the detail. I’m to the bits and collets section. I have a large number of router bits and was wondering if I can use them on my machine or do I need to order all new ones. I have some really small one I use for Marquetry that would probably be too fragile for CNC.
My plan is to do the design on my Mac (in the house) and the work on a PC (in the garage).
A large portion of router bits, especially those that have a profile are not designed for a CNC and you would have a tough time designing proper toolpaths for them. If you look at the Freud and Tools Today (Amana) websites, you will see what type of bits are designed for a CNC. I’m afraid that you will need to purchase new endmills for your CNC projects.
Welcome @Jwjimbo, enjoy the ride! I have fond memories of my first few weeks of discovering the Shapeoko and CNC (and then for some reason the excitement never disappeared!)
There have been discussions on the forum about using router bits (example1, example2), so it’s not impossible, but as @luc.onthego said it requires precautions/specific feeds and speeds and toolpaths, so they are definitely not ideal for learning: my advice would be to buy a (small) starter pack of endmills (typically a couple of #201, #102, and #301, or maybe this new one), get familiar with using them, and once you master the CNC workflow and understand the constraints, then consider using your router bits.
If you’re going through the ebook, don’t hesitate to take notes on what’s unclear or missing in there and send me comments, I’ll do my best to take them into account for the next release.