What did you cut on your Shapeoko/ Nomad today?

Find an STL you like and import it.
Cncplanetart.com has some nice ones or just search online. Tons of stuff out there. Then you have to figure out how to size it appropriately and get the toolpaths set up.

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I got my Shapeoko 5 Pro and over all I am super happy with it. I contacted customer service about an issue with my power pendant. They responded the very next day. Turns out I just didn’t understand how it functioned. Customer service was professional and I appreciated their professionalism. This is my very first CNC machine and also my first time milling anything since I was in high school (during the last milennium) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: For my first project I designed a simple sign for my grandson’s room. It only took a couple of minutes to create a simple design in Carbide Create. I bought the S5PRO 4x4 with a VFD Spindle, BitZero, SweepyHD and got the Black Friday kit so I also have the compact router, bit runner deluxe 2.0, sweepy 2.0 and the endmill starter kit. I ran my hello world program with the included marker earlier in the week and realized the machine could also double as a plotter. For newbie’s like me wondering whether to buy a table or build one, I decided to build mine since I would have had to cut a top anyway for the tables I was looking at. I ended up using 2x4’s along with particle board and a simpson workbench kit. I purchased it at Lowes but I have also seen them on amazon. My table is 65x65 to accommodate the massive footprint of the 4x4 cutting bed. Overall assembly was straight forward and I really appreciate Carbide’s design of the machine and customer service. I now have all sorts of fun things floating around in my head for projects.

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I bought everything you bought, and then some, as well. I also built my own table for my machine. I have the S5 Pro as well with the 4x4 table. My footprint was minimized to 62x62. I built a power bank shelf for the spindle controller box and power supply of the machine. I also wired in a designated power outlet just for my machine in my shop. I am still working on the 4 drawers I will be installing and then I am taking the foam that was packaged around the machine when it was shipped to me, and will cut out custom slots for all the tools and bits to be placed into.

One thing for everyone to think about when setting up your machine. Make sure you square up your machine table base. I was putting mine together and thought nothing about this at first until I got almost completely done with assembly. Then I checked squareness and realized my table was 1/2 inch out of square. I had to remove every screw on my hybrid table, (48 screws), and then loosen the subframe screws, (96 screws), to fix this. Pain in the butt, but lesson learned. I knew better.

Thank you so much CullenS, for sending that link. I searched a few of their files they have on hand and pleased with what I see. Could be a wonderful start of things to make for part of my inventory for an upcoming event that I will be planning to attend with many of my creates from my S5 Pro. Thanks again.

I am pretty sure that is where I got the file I used for the top of this box. I had to add a little geometry above and below the 3D and then create 3D elements out of them in order to get it to look right on the box since the STL was not as tall as the lid.


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Very nice. What was the runtime for your box top? It’ would seem that something of this detail and 3D would take days to finish according to the information on some projects I designed and was going to use Advanced Vcarve in CC Pro. My question then is, can Carbide Create Pro handle and work these files?

I created the toolpaths for my deer scene on an Advanced Vcarve toolpath and when it calculated up the estimated time, it came to 796 minutes. With times like this, I couldn’t get much of anything done that was worth anything of true value for the amount of time it would have taken to produce.

Again, very nice horses carving. I’m always looking for advice and information that could help. Thanks.

I had three different files. This was only my second 3D carve really and I wasn’t sure how things were going to go and whether I was going to want more detail. Started with the first one and then created another with the 1/16 bit and then one with a 1/32 bit.

If I had not restricted the 1/16 and 1/32 working area by drawing in some additional vectors it may have taken days.

This was just for the carving on the top. The actual cox creation was in another file. You can see that I built one file from the other and disabled some of the paths as I went.

I don’t know whether these were reasonable settings or not, but they worked. I have not gotten very scientific about it.

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I could live with those times for a 3D carving, especially if I was working on other projects or processing wood to be ready for carving. I don’t like to stand there having to babysit the machine, but I find myself standing there like a moth attracted to the light as the machine works thru the program.

Creating different parts of the program work like you did, you took out a lot of extra toolpathing keeping the main work as the incentive part of the work? I’m still figuring out the programs as it is. CC Pro is a little hard to navigate when trying to find the things people talk about with different processes of programming. I was trying my hand in working with different layers and stack texting, and I get stuck at the copying of both text into their own layer and then welding them together.

The videos on YouTube are all for Vector Vcarve or F360 and I have neither one. I have CC Pro and I had to do a lot of searching to find each part of what the guys on their videos had said to do. I have 13 years of metal machining, CNC programming, and manual mill and lathe work. Having this S5 Pro is great, but the programming is so rudimentary and derelict, that I have trouble finding any of the higher functions. What it really comes down to is me not being proficient with the program enough to know all of the options and capabilities the program offers.

A lot of the videos out there on stacked text show using regular end mills and straight sides. If you do that it is pretty easy.

If you want to do it with a V bit you need to remember to offset the top layer vector by the amount appropriate for your bit.

This video shows that technique and how to do the calculation. He is using VCarve but the same method works in CC.

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Thank you for this video. It is a great help for stacking text or pictures. I will be going back thru the video a few times to make sure I find options that he was using to understand how CC can do this same stuff.

Please see:

and

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Well, not today but made on a HDM over several months.
47 CAM setups, lol.

Brian Law clock 23.

Minus escapement, managed to damage it today. Easily fixed with a new one.

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Wow that is very nice! Looks complicated. The shape of the gears and the unique layout of the hour numbers really draws you in. Congratulations, a lot of work but the end result is so worth it!

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Thanks Max.

It was a challenge. So many mistakes.

I have plans for two more!

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Completely missed this question.
I’m not sure what the original font was. My wife had purchases an STL.
But a really close match would be KellsFLF.

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I am going to try and get this cut tonight or tomorrow. A couple of months ago I gave a presentation on the Golden Ratio to my wood working club. Not sure where I found this and it might have been here on the forum. I thought it was interesting and really not hard to make. The thing is called Funky Gears and I have it all done in CC.

Here is a picture of a finished project. Sometimes I just like to make useless things for the fun of it. So you just put your finger in the nautilus and spin. You can find the free plan by searching for funkygear

I finally got to cut out my FunkyGears project. I like it but I think I need to redesign it a little and put a fill in the big nautalis for a handle to turn the piece. I like it. I cut it out of some scrap prefinished maple plywood.

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My jewelry box above uses the golden ratio. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Excellent Tutorial and video explanation! Thank you for posting

I think it tracks with the method from @WillAdams but explains it a little differently.

Thank you WillAdams for your input. I have been looking into trying to figure out the last stages of making the final programming layer of stacked text. I don’t want to just stack text. I want to be able to put pictures behind or above text, or pictures above pictures under the layer parts.

I havent looked at what you have posted yet, but am heading over there now to see what you might have given me to research more into. I thank you in advance for helping me along my journey towards understanding layers and working towards making more in-depth carvings from CC Pro.