I am tried to engrave lamicoid material, I only want to got about 0.25mm deep
I have been doing this on small piece for a while (about the size of a piece of paper)
I have 24x24 inch material now I made a new vacuum jig and surface the top and bottom.
It seems the new material also has adhesive backing now I think that layer is creating variations. Some sheets I engrave no issues while others have dips and peaks outside the range the end mill can handle.
Has anyone figured out how to get a surface map with a shapeoko then I use maybe a post processing script to apply the height variations.
I am sure I could write gcode to do a probing pattern I am just not sure how I am going to turn that into a point cloud. Any ideas?
OK I had a thought. Is there any way to generate a message from the carbide software to the PC, I was thinking if I add a pause at each probe point then let that trigger the pc to read a probe… Since I know where the points are suppose to be I assume the X and Y coordinate and read the Z. it would be painfully slow but if I could keep the points to a minimum maybe it would be enough…
Now I know that Carbide has locked down the IO on the controller so there is no easy way to get a signal out that way but what I dont know is if there is a way to generate communication between the carbide motion and an outside app. Anyone have any ideas?
Hmm one more thought to pile onto this. Has anyone used something other then Carbide motion to control the Shapeoko that might be able to run a script like creating height map.
I figured maybe gSender might have height mapping but it looks like it’s still an open request:
Maybe some of the suggestions on that thread could get you going. (bCNC looks particularly interesting)
Another thought, if you support the workpiece on points maybe they would poke through the adhesive to give a more level support surface
Milling a vacuum plate with a bunch of point contacts seems like a lot of effort for testing a hunch though
Thanks, and yeah took me 3 days to make this fixture Tried to be super careful with it but I think somehow the fixture has a warp to it sigh it gets pulled down with the vacuum forced back to flat but I have to be real careful I have a good vacuum
If it’s warping in a banana shape with the edges curling towards the side you removed material from, it could be internal stresses shifting the material around. I suppose the likelihood that this is your problem would depend on the material you used.
If you’ve got photos to share, I’m sure folks here would have thoughts on what might be happening/how to improve things. (Hopefully without a whole bunch of modification or dealing with new senders )
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