Big Blue lives

[robtown]

After 2 moves and being in storage for the last 3 years, old blue is coming back together.

Blue is almost 20 now. Still running strong. I built an Acorn controller for it a few years ago, more for fun than necessity as the original one still worked fine.

Looking forward to getting back to tinkering and making.

[robtown]

After 2 moves and being in storage for the last 3 years, old blue is coming back together.

Blue is almost 20 now. Still running strong. I built an Acorn controller for it a few years ago, more for fun than necessity as the original one still worked fine.

Looking forward to getting back to tinkering and making.

Taking it out for a test drive after being disassembled and in storage for three years.

[robtown]

Taking it out for a test drive after being disassembled and in storage for three years.

How it’s going:

[8Ball]

That material looks like PVC.
You should ramp up your feeds. It looks like you're producing baby powder vs. chips.
And if your time stamps indicate run time, you're about 5-5.5 hours over when it should've been finished,
and it isn't completed yet.
What are your settings?

[robtown]

That material looks like PVC.
You should ramp up your feeds. It looks like you're producing baby powder vs. chips.
And if your time stamps indicate run time, you're about 5-5.5 hours over when it should've been finished,
and it isn't completed yet.
What are your settings?

All valid questions and suggestions.

I stopped it last night about 2 hours in, and restarted this morning.
It is not the most efficient tool path I’ve ever run, for a number of reasons, but mostly because my safe z in the tool paths was set to 1.5” and yesterday it would retract to that on each move between cuts. Before I restarted this morning I hand edited the file to make the safe z .25”… a big timesaver.

Now that I’m running it, I see a number of ways I could get the same results in half the time or better.

The second part of that equation is just rustiness in my part. Haven’t attempted anything like this in years. I’m doing this in Carveco for the first time… AND I just had to replace my control computer because it’s hdd failed, so I had to reset everything from scratch including updating CNC12 to the new Router version.

Not really sure what my speed settings are, it’s and old PRT with some updates, but I don’t really push it. I’m probably not cutting any faster than 3” per second. And my old PC 8512 is running at its highest setting.

[8Ball]

Which version of Carveco? Is it Carveco, or one of the Maker lines?
In my experience, Carveco makes design work horribly difficult, especially compared to Vectric's products.
The tools are hidden under drop downs, and every operation consists of at least two additional steps.
Vectric has the tools laid out much better. Not to mention, VCP is half the price of M+, and doesn't charge almost $300/yr to update.

YMMV

[robtown]

Which version of Carveco? Is it Carveco, or one of the Maker lines?
In my experience, Carveco makes design work horribly difficult, especially compared to Vectric's products.
The tools are hidden under drop downs, and every operation consists of at least two additional steps.
Vectric has the tools laid out much better. Not to mention, VCP is half the price of M+, and doesn't charge almost $300/yr to update.

YMMV

I bought Carveco when they first released it and received updates for like 15 months. I don’t recall what version it’s currently at.

I do my actual modeling in 3D programs. This one was done in 3dsmax.

[robtown]

I bought Carveco when they first released it and received updates for like 15 months. I don’t recall what version it’s currently at.

I do my actual modeling in 3D programs. This one was done in 3dsmax.

Here’s the carve after a pass with the 1/4 ball nose. (Approx 7 hours)


I haven’t cut it out yet because I’m rethinking my strategy for the letters.

Here’s the chips coming off the carve while progress:


I used a sheet of 1/2” pvc bought from the box store. I cut two 30” x 30” pieces and laminated them together, then figured out where the skull would project forward and laminated a piece for that:


I’ve got a great technique for laminating this stuff together. I learned it from an engineer at Sintra a long time ago when I was researching a job at the time. I can share that if anybody is interested.

[chiloquinruss]

"Sintra a long time ago when I was researching a job at the time. I can share that if anybody is interested." I's be interested in anything to do with Sintra, thanks! Russ

[robtown]

"Sintra a long time ago when I was researching a job at the time. I can share that if anybody is interested." I's be interested in anything to do with Sintra, thanks! Russ

Sure, glad to share.

We were trying to laminate 3 sheets of 1/4 sintra together two white sheets and a yellow sandwiched in between.

We were cutting a run of parts and we wanted the yellow stripe on the edges.

We ordered some specialty adhesives for this and glued them up, but when we started cutting we were losing a bunch of them to delamination.

We tried a number of different solutions, but nothing really worked well.

I finally called Sintra (or maybe it was the manufacturer of Komatex) and they had an engineer call me back.

His suggestion was to use straight MEK.

You have to go to a paint store for MEK, or I picked up a quart at West Marine for this project that I'm showing now.

Flood the surface and put the pieces together quickly and apply uniform pressure. Basically it welds the surfaces together.

What he said about all the specialty adhesives we tried, was that they probably did the same thing, but contained various additives or binders that could give you more open time, but creates a brittle joint.

That's it... straight MEK. In good ventilation. It works.

With small parts it's easy. This one I'm showing is 30" x 30" and it was easy to do quickly with a big box store 1/2 pvc sheet. Then I scribed where the face projection needed to be and glued it up on the router bed.