First steps with a Shapeoko router table

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Despite my last comment above, I've decided to give it a rest. At least, for now. As you will gather from the video below, I'm pretty disheartened at the whole project. Not with the router – that's doing everything I tell it to do. It's just that I think I'm telling it to do the wrong thing, or rather the right thing from an incorrect starting point.

I believe that I have misunderstood from the get-go, the initial positioning of the milling cutter. I had assumed that the centre axis of the milling cutter should be directly over the origin of the "Work coordinate system", whereas by setting the cutter edges to just touch the stock in X and Y (i.e. 3mm off the origin), I would probably get the machining in the right place. Too late, I realised this and you will hear from the soundtrack that I'm a bit miffed and thus a break is called for.

I may try a bit of engraving, but no more milling. Others have made the machine work perfectly satisfactorily so it's definitely me, not the router. I just can't get on with the CAM.

Here's the video:

John

[Ronald MorrisonParticipant @ronaldmorrison29248]

When I first started designing I found CAD to be very difficult. Now it is only quite difficult. I was 3-D printing and only had to enter the design into the slicer and then print. Then I set up my mini-mill with CNC and had to try to learn CAM. I found that to be even more confusing. To keep from wasting precious metal, I will take the extra time to mill the part from wood of which I have a lot, then when I feel the program is doing what I want, making cuts the depth I want, and where I want them, then I will switch to the metal for the actual part.

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