posted
The new CNC router is in, it runs back and forth up and down, and I even got it to cut a square.
I have learned how to create shapes and text then convert it to G code, select the bit, adjust the speeds, and start the machine to cut a simple shape.
I have a long long, really long way to go, my brain has been turned to mush already...and I haven't even passed "K" (kindergarden) level routing yet.
Even the simple stuff, or what should be simple, is frustrating me to death. I'm LOVING IT!
This is what I need help with: ( I cant find it in the manual)
How does one know where to clamp material (the substrate) on the table so its square and plumb and the corners are where the router thinks the substrate should be?
I know that sounds so easy a child could do it, so maybe that is why the people who wrote the manual don't even discuss it!
The XY "0,0" home position is on the left bottom table edge where the center of the routing bit is right on the edge of the table...but thats not where I need to clamp the substrate down.
I'll give you a little background info: this is a WartHog Made by GlenTek, it has a Porter Cable router attached, the table is 50" by 110" so I can comfortably work with 4x8 sheet of material. The gantry is oversized so the router will go to the very edge of the table (the full 50 inches. The table top is made of MDF parrticle board, so there are no grooves to clamp anything down. I have to screw or double stickey tape things down or find other creative ways to keep the substrait in place while routing. Profilelab 3D by Cadlink is the design software, WinCnC is the software that tells the router how to go back and forth and up and down.
I guess what I need is a guide line that tells me where to clamp down a sheet, or a board. If I wanted to route out a board that was 12" tall by 36 inches wide with text that reads "LETTERHEAD" with the letters raised and the background cut down along with a nice border around the entire name, I would want the text centered in the board and level, right? So that if the board is not in the right place, the lettering is going to be off as well as the border also. This is what I'm awkwardly trying to put into words.
Do I need to design a 4 x 8 foot box and route this grove into the table so I have a refference for square and plumb and left justified? Or am I missing something so easy its not worth putting in the manual as part of a "step by step" discussion?
Help! or Help?
Thanks
------------ Side note: We do our sign work in Gerber Omega Composer, ( but it won't work with this router)
Cadlink Profilelab 3D will do everything, from vinyl, to Edge printing to inkjet, 2.5D routing (cant do true 3D unless you have a 5 axis system)
But, but but...Geber Omega will let you have as many "composer" windows open so that you can multi-task to your hearts content. You can run serveral plotters, the Edge, and more while designing something new in a new screen.
Profile lab wont do that. One design window, only. No mutitasking. In fact the program has to close before i can go into WinCnC to start the router. It makes you appreciate Omega a litte more. a little!
[ March 10, 2004, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: Dave Draper ]
posted
Hi Dave this is what I would do with your type of router: first I would get a sheet of scratched and dirty sheet of komatex or whatever brand of expanded PVC sheeting your local sign supply dealer sells (they will love being able to sell them to you instead of throwing them in the trash our vendor sells them to us for $5) get a roll of double sided masking tape or carpet tape and attach this sheet your "sacrifice sheet" to your existing table. We put a length of tape about every 10" across the back of the pvc and literally crawl up on the router table and walk around to secure the sheet in place. Then go to your control box and move the gantry to the lower left corner (this is where I set zero or home) manually run the router down to the sacrifice sheet and then just a touch more, just enough so that when you spin the router bit manually that it lightly cuts the sheet (side note I leave the bit finger tight in the router chuck until this point and tighten it down only when I move it to the bottom as explained above this way you or an employee doesn't run it down to quickly during set up and bust a bit....it happens)so now that you know that the bit wont cut through the table turn on the router motor and with the manual controls run a vertical line from the zero/home position, now either run the router straight back to home or if you have a home control enter it and it will automatically move to home (it is very important to get into the habit of setting a home position as when you get into more complex jobs it will save your bacon in many more ways than I feel like typing at the moment) now that you are at home run a horizontal line manually with your controls and cut another light line into the sacrifice sheet, you now have a true 90 degree corner to your gantry which is more important than the squareness of your table (even though it should be square) so if you want to get really specific you would line up your sheet to the outside edge of that outline you made, that way if you have to do a piece larger than your table you would just slide the substrate down maintaining your baseline until you reach the spot where your table maxed out. In regards to where to clamp your material down, I don't use this method as most of the work that we do is cut out letters, but even when we do a dimensional piece what we do is tape it down with double sided tape, the benefit to using this method is that when the router gets to the end of its cutting path the piece being routed doesn't jump out of the sheet, usually hitting the router bit and ending up in the scrap pile. If you can't understand this very long method let me know and I will talk you through it.
-------------------- Dan Streicher Slidell, LA Posts: 445 | From: Slidell, LA | Registered: Feb 2004
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You said "YOU SET the 0,0 position" and that is part of my problem.
The WinCNC program has a point an click icon that makes the router automatically go to a previously programed 0,0 position.
I don't have any say so in the matter yet. I must have a way to set my own 0,0 position where I want to set it....and maybe I will figure that out in the next few days. The manual is very obscure.
Don't you wish they would put as much time into thinking how to teach customers to USE the equipment and software as they do making the software. You think it would be so easy, but no!
I checked out at Barnes & Noble for "CNC ROUTING & MILLING FOR DUMBIES" but it hasn't been written yet!
posted
let me see how to explain this, it seems a lot of new router users can't grasp a few router dynamics, so you are not alone, it can be a new way of thinking, your computer should be used for sending your design the "G code" that you generated, you really need to control the basics from the control panel at your router and not from your pc, when I used to sell routing equipment I encouraged customers to keep the computer in a different room than the router for dust and such. So what I want you to try to understand that 0,0 as you call it (home) on your design computer is or should be arbitrary, you should set home at your router with its control panel, that way you know that the router is set up correctly and safely so that you don't do damage to your material, the router operator, or the router itself. I think this would be easier to explain if you were at your router and you were talked through this process while you were able to do it. but I am going to try to explain the process of sending a job and how i would set it up.
First you design your sign, object whatever, assign proper paths etc., and your computer will create the G code and if the file is not too large you will turn on your router and send the file to it's computer, if the file is huge that is another scenario so that your design computer can spool the file. So you go out to your shop and you scroll through the display panel and see that your job that you sent is there. Then depending on how your control panel works you manually move the gantry to the left side of the router table and the router to the lower end of the gantry, that is where I usually stand and have my controls (lower left corner) where the X and Y axis are at that position is 0,0, or home, and every routing system I have ever had or sold allows you to set it from the control panel. So don't even worry about where your design computer thinks that is, when you set this position at the router that is where the job will begin at this is very important if you want to use scrap or a piece of a substrate that is on the router table from a previous job and you want to move the router head to a unused portion to cut another piece or another sign.
I think that you are not visualizing the process correctly in that what you are designing on your design computer doesn't need to be designed in accordance to where it would cut on the router, maybe a better way of describing this would be to think of your design page on your computer screen as the router table, you could design your sign off of the page and send it to the router and it will start its working path at the place you set as home position, not at the place that you designed it on your design computer. I hope that helps, email me if not and I will give you a phone # that you can call me at while you are at your router and I will try to talk you through the process.
-------------------- Dan Streicher Slidell, LA Posts: 445 | From: Slidell, LA | Registered: Feb 2004
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It seems very odd to me that the design software allows you to create a shape, send it to a vinyl cutting plotter right from the screen, but to send that same file to a router, it needs a whole new outside program to load in the file.
This is the year 2004? right? Why can't they just.............make it easy!
I looked at the simple "G" code file created to make my square shape in the above post. Since I am so new at routing, G code lookes like Japaneese to me. I haven't learned to read it yet.
When I send a file of a square to a plotter to cut vinyl, there is no "G" code to view. Just hit the start button on the plotter and it cuts. Cutting vinyl has become so easy, you never think of opening a program file to see all the x y coordinates and the lineS and lines and lines of instructions that the plotter is using to cut your shapes and letters.
Routing appears to not be to that level yet. You are forced to view every line (10,000,S OF THEM): G0023 X234.23 Y015 F42 (YADA YADA YADA YADA)
Today Im going to learn how NOT to drill a hole through my table when the square is done cutting. I think the router was trying to make two passes, and on the second pass, the router went deeper and boared a hole in my table! YIKES!
A vinyl cutting plotter cant make an unexpected move and cut your fingers off or kill you like a CNC router could. Getting hit in the head by a moving gantry is not fun!
posted
i use wincnc for output also...when you know your bit is in the right place in the corner of the material...i type in g92xy...that automatically sets that new position for the xy(don't hit the home position tab or it will make the factory home its new z)...then you can move it to z it with the z plate....then when you type gxy...it should go back to your new home position. i also set my z at an inch above material...cause i'm paranoid. i assume you are using a piece of material that is oversized right? so don't worry about laying it out on the table exactly square just close as possible...the profile cut will take care of cutting it square...always do your profile cut last(after routed letters or reliefs)
say you are profile cutting material that's 1/4" thick with a 1/4" endmill...it may take 2 passes depending on what you entered in the toolpath selection(the default is sometimes set at .10, so it may make 3 passes...i always change it to 1/4" if i'm using a 1/4" bit(don't go bigger than your bit size on a pass or you could break a bit..especially those little 1/8" ones....are you using artcam??? if so i can help you a little with that. make sure you always remember to "z in" every new tool change.
i have a vacuum hold down but with mdo i also use 2 sided tape....if i know the piece of material is oversized and the spindle won't go near those outside ends i use clamps(but not so tight that it buckles)...make sure short end of clamp is up...don't have it backwards or the gantry will hit it and you'll be f*&ked.
i hope this helps...sometimes i'm not very good at explaining in writing...feel free to call.
-------------------- Karyn Bush Simply Not Ordinary, LLC Bartlett, NH 603-383-9955 www.snosigns.com info@snosigns.com Posts: 3516 | From: Bartlett, NH USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Dave, Welcome to routing. It's a lot like screenprinting, lots of planning and setup is required and you don't make money on one piece.
You have a machine coordinate system and a program coordinate system just like a vinyl cutter. You move the head to the lower left corner of your substrate and set the program zero on your controller. If your controller has no way to do this you can enter a Gcode in the data file. Usually a G92 sets the prgram zero to the current machine location.
Common Gcodes are:
Movement G00 Rapid Tool Positioning G01 Linear Interpolated Feedrate Move G02 Clockwise Circular Feedrate Move G03 Counter Clockwise Circular Feedrate Move Circular Interpolation G17 XY Plane Selection G18 XZ Plane Selection G19 YZ Plane Selection Units G20 Inch Units (also G70) G21 Metric Units (also G71) Cutter Compensation G40 Cancel Cutter Compensation G41 Cutter Compensation (Left) G42 Cutter Compensation (Right) Tool Length/Geometry Compensation G43 Tool Length/Geometry Compensation (Plus) G44 Tool Length/Geometry Compensation (Minus) G49 Cancel Tool Length/Geometry Compensation Set Program Zero G54-59 Set Program Zero (Fixture Offsets) G92 Set Program Zero (XYZA Parameters)
ernie
-------------------- Ernie Balch Balch Signs 1045 Raymond Rd Malta, NY 518-885-9899 Posts: 405 | From: Malta, NY | Registered: Jan 2003
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Went to Warthog website looked under nine steps to using your Warthog. I think the term you are looking for is local home position in line 4. Hope this helps.
Happy routing!
-------------------- Dennis Raap Raap Signs Posts: 839 | From: Coopersville, MI | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I don't know about Warthog but with the MultiCam we can turn a board at an angle if we want and then set a start and end position going along that angle and that's how it will cut. (Does that make sense). It's all done with the controller programs. I wouldn't have a clue on g-code.
If you can do something like that then you can make some type of permanent pieces to put the boards into a corner everytime.
We're still learning to. The hardest thing for us is clamping/holding things flush across the table. We are plumbed for vacuum and have the vacuum top but had to wait on the pump $$$.
Good luck!
-------------------- Amy Brown Life Skills 101 Private Address Posts: 3502 | From: Lake Helen, FL, USA | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Hey Dave in regards to drilling a hole in your table that can be attributed to "OE" operator error in setup, sorry, when you are setting up the router with the bit you are going to use for a particular job, leave it finger tight in the router chuck, manually run the router downward till it stops, now raise it just slightly and slide the body of the router bit up into the chuck and tighten it in place, this will physically make it impossible to cut through the table or your sacrifice sheet, you should have it set so that a bit can never cut through the table, I unfortunatley have witnessed a new router user seriously injure himself because the machine was not set up correctly, and put his hand in the middle of things while the machine was running to try to salvage a cut out letter....YIKES!!!, setup is everything with a computerized routing system, as to G Code I would just recommend that you trust that your computer is writing correctly (there should be no reason that it doesnt;) and worry yourself with learning the fundamentals, setup, tooling, proper cutting procedures and such,as to clamping I have seen very few situations where using a tape down method wouldn't work or benefit the operator, the clamp down system works great for broad wood working projects but has not worked good for me for sign work, just my two cents, I don't want to have to recut pieces. The learning curve with a computerized routing system can be huge it won't happen overnight, and you are going to burn through some material I wouldn't commit to any tight deadlines until you can predict what your outcome is going to be, and then you have to look forward to finding a speedy way to paint your pieces, and all the problems that come with that, we have had nothing but nightmares in the past painting pieces for other sign companies and got to the point where we would only cut their work and then they can paint them, GOOD LUCK
-------------------- Dan Streicher Slidell, LA Posts: 445 | From: Slidell, LA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Those tips are great, and the support is making me fell all fuzzy inside!
I'm like a new puppy dog. This should be loads of fun for you experienced ones watching me learn CNC routing! Think of it as entertainment, at my expense!
Ok, Profilelab has a 4x8 drawing screen already set up that coresponds with the router. I didn't realize this until I found the grid view and turned it on as well as the ruler bars.
What Profilelab does is let you design on the screen inside a box, and as long as you stay inside that box, the router will go exactly to the spot your graphic appears on the program. In other words, If I start the graphic 2 inches up and 4 inches to the right, or move my graphic to that position, the router will move up 2 inches and over 4 inches and begin cutting.
So, all I need to know is where the router thinks that 4x8 box is on my table. And I figured that out by setting the router to its home position, then x 96 and drilled a hole in the table, then y48 and drilled another hole, then back 96 inches drilled another hole and then down 48 and drilled a hole. I can fill the holes in with a dowel stick later and a little putty.
I was thinking of putting a magic marker in the tool holder and making a grid on the sacrifice sheet. Is that a dumb idea? I could easily find where 2 inches up and 4 inches over is! Right? You can all laugh now!
Karen, I also have WinCnC as my routing program. I do have some questions as to what Zero Table means, and the others click on buttons.
You should not have to set up a grid there should be a way to tell your router where local home is in relation to where you have set the piece to be cut on the table. This is different than the home which is 0,0. On my system I set the material that is going to be routed on the router table, then move the router head over to the lower left hand corner of the material this will be how the router knows where the material corner is. I have a different router and software but I think that the basic setup should be the same as far as moving the material any where on the table as long as the job is small enough to fit the working area of the router.
For instance maybe you have a 24" x 24" piece of foam you are going to cut a job out of you should be able to place the foam on the table any where and tell the router the foam is at this location and then send the job.
If you need to call me it maybe easier to explain on the phone.
-------------------- Dennis Raap Raap Signs Posts: 839 | From: Coopersville, MI | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I have virtualy NO CNC experience, but quite a few others, I assume you are using a set of dimensional references (x, y, z) each having a preset 0 point, built into the hardware.
You simply want an easy way to use a different poin, for example to center a 24"x24" block of foam on a 48" table.
Is ther a definable function (or can you simply declare it in the software) something like offsetX=+12 offsetY=+12
and keep the cutter point at whatever+offsetX
when running
-------------------- Bob Sheers 24 Hour Services Columbia, MD USA 410-995-3655 bob@go-to-airport.com Posts: 140 | From: Columbia, MD, USA | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
Dave, I am also new to this and haven't had too much time to play! Have had alot of encouraging e-mail and offers of help so you are not alone, and there are some great signpeaople out there.
I'm not sure how your win program works, isn't Profilelab based on Signlab 5?.
I am finding the Signlab (e6) thing a new learning curve but see that as positive, as we only loaded that in the router computer and not Omega.
In Signlab I made a template of the TOTAL area the router reaches, ie outside of the active/working area, I then drew in extra lines to show the working area.
Then in axys set machine to find home which is bottom left corner like a plotter.
Now when you make jobs in signsoftware place them wherever you want within that signblank (the table) and when you send the job it should come out right.
In the AXYs program you can click on Cad origin and see if the figures correspond, if they differ as they did in my case, we entered a new command in the .axy file [Custom] ForceCadOrg=1 but as you are running a different set up that may differ.
I now know that whatever files I send to Toolpath from Signlab will be OK, then in that program decide multipasses depth, etc.
Its fun....its a learning curve alright, I have spent more time recently in the evenings here relocating the vacuum pump compressor, and dust extraction.
A tip I was given was to warm the spindle up every day in the morning or before use 10mins at about 6000 revs before working it at 24000, help to prolong its life.
Be glad to share my mistakes and whatever I learn in a positive manner in the coming months!
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a little! 
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