X-Carve as a budget CNC?

[ehochstein]

I purchased a fully loaded X-Carve a few months ago and had a chance to play with it quite a bit. The assembly instructions are great - everything is really easy to put together. The only time I deviated from the assembly instructions is when installing the belting, I'm using a different method to keep the belt in place than they recommended. I find that the recommendation they gave causes a lot of slip in the belt, especially when 'carving'.

The biggest issue I have encountered with my X-Carve is getting my CAD files to read correctly in Inventable's Easel software. In order to import your files, you need to have them in SVG format. Solidworks does not directly export to SVG, so the best way I have found to get them to be readable is by exporting files as DXF in solidworks, importing them into Inkscape and exporting them as SVG. At the point when I upload it to Easel, I usually run into multiple issues and I think most of it has to do with curves in the parts. Easel tells me that I need an (infinitely) smaller bit to run my parts, when in reality I do not. I've also attempted to import a 32t sprocket into Easel and every time I do the webpage crashes (in Chrome) I've done this on multiple computers as well. I've had a lot of problems using Easel and at this point I'm considering getting a beefier control board and running HSMWorks out of Solidworks.

The quality of the cuts the machine makes are decent, I'm sure if I played around with calibrations I could get it running as well as any top-line CNC router. I'll see if I can get some pictures of cuts I've made so far.

My Machine Specs:
1000mmx1000mm
ACME Lead Screw
NEMA 23 Stepper Motors
300W 24VDC Spindle Kit
Arduino/gShield Motion Controller Kit
Limit Switch Kit