I have the standard size shapeoko . But I have a lot of trouble figuring out where to place my material so that the machine has space to cut. But i want to figure out some ways to standardize my projects and stock. For example I want to precut my stock to a certain dimension. And have have a brocket or something to easily hold it. I want the machine to starts from a certain origin every time and not have to zero it off the surface EVERY time. Is anyone doing something like this?
Well, we have:
which when paired w/ a set of either Tiger Claw or Gator Tooth clamps works quite well.
It’s esp. convenient if you mount it so that the origin matches up w/ the SW rapid position point and have your origin set for the stock surface.
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Is there a way to set the material to say .25 in without using the probe. Enough to get close? Does everyone pretty much probe the surface EVeRY time?
Also if I line that bracket up with the sw point that means everything in the square is cut table with the machine without it crashing?
Depends on the material. If it’s something soft or I’m batching out a bunch of jobs on the same dimensionally stable stock (lumber you milled yourself, MDF, PVC, etc) I don’t re-probe any axis. The BitZero takes about 1-2 min added time to the workflow which isn’t bad at all. That’s a high estimate for manually postioning over a good zero location, hooking it up to the spindle, and running the routine.
I use the Carbide Corner, which for my uses is a good price and functionality. I don’t have it positioned on a rapid point, as I needed it near an extreme side that was still BitZero-able (if you go over too far the probe routine will crash the X axis), but not too close to the front edge. This allows me to maximize machining width while maintaining an acceptable depth with front edge clamping.
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I ordered the carbide squat brackets. Anyone use these hold down clamps? These seem like they would be nice.
Zach
I have seen pictures of people here using them, was it @Luke maybe?
I have thought of using them myself, but I have not had a big enough batch of identical items to warrant the timesaving these clamps provide.
Those look like de-sta-co clamps, which are awesome for quick release jigs and set ups. I use them for a variety of jigs in my shop. However, I’ve never used them on my CNC, as the handles are pretty high off the surface and are likely to get clipped by either the bit or the dust boot (or laser).
I made my own corner brackets using the CNC to cut in 2 passes - the first, to cut the holes (creating the pattern from the design of my waste board, so that they lined up perfectly with the waste board)…then I used those holes to attach the jig and ran a job to cut the 90 corner (and recess). By cutting it in two passes, I eliminated any alignment issues and assured that the 90 was in the exact place that the CNC would need it to be, relative to the holes. They work great.
The only issue I had to solve was holding down the workpiece in the corner when using the corner jig, so that it wouldn’t rise up due to the pressure of other clamps. Having to set up a clamp that reaches over the jig to hold the inside corner down was not so simple…but attaching it to the jig itself proved to work well.
One more thing: If you have a laser attachment (I have the JTech with the shroud), it’s hard to use a corner bracket to reference your piece because the laser is fractions of an inch above the surface…and for thin boards, the housing can crash into the corner bracket. I ended up making a low-profile corner bracket out of 1/8" wood that gets out of the way, but still provides a positive reference. I still use my 3/4" one for most pieces, just to provide stiffer support - but it’s nice to have that low profile one as well.
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one big gotcha with clamps like these is that they stick up pretty high… you really really don’t want your endmill to hit them at any time, and with their height, that takes more careful planning than I am normally happy with.
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