Hello
Have had SO3 for yay 1 year now and still super rookie here
Im mostly machining rough cut planks/wood. And first before i start project i need to make stock flat. I dont have planer or thickness machine. Basic tools and cnc.
So far what i have done is getting wood kinda okay under machine using wedges etc. Then flatten one side and then flip and get it flattened.
My main question would be, what would be your workflow? What i do seems to work but time consuming. Specially machining.
Cos i dont know how big difference highest height is i do first gcode 0,2mm thick pass, just to make sure machine dosent dig in to much with facing mill. And i set zero with eye highest point on stock
Then next gcode is 1mm steps. Problem- I dont know how many mm is optimal to get off. So i run that 1mm gcode as many till all surface is machined and that takes massive time.
Set zero.
Start program.
Machine homes then auto jogging +6mm then manually -1mm new zero.
Start program again
Start again from step 2 till 6 till all flat.
Then flip stock.
Start from step 1 till other side is flat.
Any good advice for workflow when you dont know how thick/thin end should be, only goal to get stock flat. For that im using also F630 as gode generator and tool paths
When i am facing some wood i use about the same process. The only difference is i usually set a deeper overall depth for the project settings. I use carbide create.
Example would be if your doing 1mm doc i set my project at say 10mm total. So i know it will make 10 passes to complete the project. I will just watch it and once i feel it is where i want it i will wait for that pass to finish, hit the pause, then stop the program. By watching that first pass i know where the pass will finish before it goes back to the center to start the next pass.
Ill flip my board and do the same for the other side after setting z zero again.
If you really wanted to save some time you could wait for the router to lift between passes and pause there. Shut the router off, flip your board ensuring its in the same spot, and then hit resume.
I try to use a larger cutter for this surfacing, relatively low depth of cut (0.5mm to 1mm) but a really high feed rate for the roughing passes, 1,800 to 3,000 mm / min. In the roughing I tend to do a stepover of about 10-15mm per pass on a decent size cutter (19-30mm bottom cleaning). As Mike says, if you set up a toolpath which takes of many mm you just stop when you’ve hit the whole surface.
I then have a finishing job which is 0.25mm below Z=0 and runs at a slower feed rate to give a cleaner final surface.