2nd Project
I wanted to produce a plaque for a leaving workmate. I had 2 machines and here are the lessons learnt.
- Keep the machine on firm ground, eg cast cement. I had the machine on a frame with rollers and they amplified the vibrations during operation, resulting in many cables and parts coming free. The cover switch cable came free and I glued (rtv) it back in place. The ribbon cable that goes to the drill head also came free and I glued that as well.
- One machine had a faulty crank that resulted in 200lbs being applied to the sand belts. The belt broke and I realized that the belt is not an easy part to get in Lowes, Home Depot or Sears. I found that once the rollers engaged fully on the boards with no gap, that force was sufficient.
- When using a vacuum, do not go near the drill head. The static will destroy the electronics there. I did that to the homing sensor. While trying to troubleshoot the sensor, I dismounted the head and realized that re-mounting it is not easy. The screws that hold the head are too soft in my opinion. A harder stainless steel should be used for those screws.
- If you have a board sensor that trips on patterns on the wood, shine a flashlight just under the head and it works fine in measuring the board. Putting masking tape as suggested elsewhere is more difficult. This solution became apparent after seeing a troublesome board sensor work nicely on a bright day.
- The text depth and width settings in my mpc are after doing 2 trial runs.
- On pictures, the blur tool is your friend. Jpeg's in particular have some compression artifacts that result in pecks on the carving. Blur them out.
- When routing the sides, stand by with a brush and dust off the board as the ends come out (or vacuum the inside by opening the lid to pause the machine).
Attached are the pictures and mpc.
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