Hi everyone - been lurking for a bit but now I’m a bonafide owner. I received my machine last weekend and got my table built and the machine put together the next day. I’ve done a couple really basic carves, but I’m now running into a problem using Carbide Create.
I’m trying to build some locating jigs to hold my work. The design is pretty simple - an “L” shaped carve out of MDF with a slot down the center to secure it to the t-tracks.
I’m drawing a vertical .25" x 5.5" slot, then copying it, rotating it 90°, and moving it to the bottom of the “L”. For some reason, the toolpath will only generate on the lower (horizontal) slot. What’s throwing me is that the horizontal part is a copy of the vertical slot.
I would think that you would double click the toolpath you want to assign to both slots. When the dialog box opens one slot will be selected, shift click on the other slot. You should see both slots cut in the simulation window
I tried unioning both at first, but it wasn’t working. I rebuilt the entire design, and even tried toolpathing each individual drawing before moving to the next. The vertical slot still would not show a toolpath. When I copied it and rotated 90°, it worked fine. I even tried copying that horizontal one (with a toolpath) and rotating it 90° - no toolpath.
I hadn’t saved the file because of the problems, but I recreated it this morning. Of course the first one I made worked like it was supposed to, but I’m seeing the same problem after copying it. This file contains 6 of the squares… the fourth from the left only travels halfway down the center pocketing operation then stops. Corner Jig.c2d (1.6 MB)
If the problem is intermittent, then the difficulty is that the dimensions are too close to those of the endmill — increase the width to be endmill diameter + 10%.
That makes sense - is that a general rule you should follow when designing parts? Add maybe a thousandth of an inch to each part so the tool path is generated?
Although I appreciate the need for the slots to provide flexibility, I wouldn’t slot the whole length/width, as the material they’re made from will likely flex and not be square.
Good feedback. I already found one critical flaw in this design when using eight the SO Pro, the width of the square is less than that of the T-slots, so the square falls into it on the Y axis.
Looks like another round will be necessary. I’ll make the overall part a little wider, and only put partial slots through the middle.