X-Carve Upgrades

[s5511]

Our team has a stock X-carve (1000mm), and we are trying to upgrade it over the summer so we can use it to accurately mill sheet metal and tubing. What mods do you guys suggest?

This is what we've come up with so far:

- Strengthen x/y axes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJKxtc8bf4
- Install new limit switches
- Build and Attach new Wasteboard
- Install ChilliPeppr Firmware
- Securely attach Xcarve to table
- Clean belts and add in dust shields
- Make a vacuum dust shoe attachment

[Rainydaymaker]

DeWalt 611 spindle upgrade
X-Controller

[cbale2000]

If you REALLY want a project, I've always wondered how practical it would be to modify the X-Carve to entirely be driven by lead screws or ball screws. It always seems like the belts have too much slop or slip to hold a tolerance for what we're doing.

I've also seen a few fairly interesting projects involving expanding the build space of the X-Carve to 1000x2000 that seemed potentially useful.

Closed-loop stepper motors might also be a nice upgrade to have.

[DonRotolo]

For metal, particularly aluminum, the chips are your enemy. Even with the right bit, the metal tends to get soft and stick to the bit, leading to bit failure a few seconds later.

You will have better results if you can spray coolant or at least a good amount of compressed air onto/near the tip of the bit, so the chips are kept away from the cutting area. By all means, a vacuum attachment is essential.

Cooling? Not necessarily a stream of liquid (with makes a mess...), but look into air-powered chillers (they use just cold compressed air) or mist sprayers (a fine mist which doesn't make a mess).

Naturally, slow it down (feed speed) for metal as compared to wood. Experiment, take notes to see what works best, and don't fret if you break a bit.

Holding down metal for machining is a LOT harder than wood, the requirements are much greater. Screw it down in several places - clamps will not work as well as you think.

[ptan]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

If you REALLY want a project, I've always wondered how practical it would be to modify the X-Carve to entirely be driven by lead screws or ball screws. It always seems like the belts have too much slop or slip to hold a tolerance for what we're doing.

I've also seen a few fairly interesting projects involving expanding the build space of the X-Carve to 1000x2000 that seemed potentially useful.

Closed-loop stepper motors might also be a nice upgrade to have.

Expanding the X-Carve is going to run into problems. I have a stock 500x500mm X-Carve and already I can notice a considerable (+- 0.005") deflection by just pushing down on the spindle. It will need considerable stiffening to expand to 1000x2000. You might want to just use one of the Openbuild plans or the Ox to get something to that size.

Also, for some reason, there is considerable backlash on the X axis (0.008"), and a little bit on the Y (0.002") -- I measured it and these numbers seem to be confirmed by other people on the internet.

FWIW, the Chinese spindle (0.8Kw) with VFD is a really nice upgrade and makes cutting aluminum easy.

Just don't expect great tolerances (i.e. bearing mounts might be off -- allow for that in your design).

[Gdeaver]

Last December, I bought a 500 X-Carve for the team to use. It's been a learning experience. The X-carve is a soft machine. It is marginally capable of cutting AL in it's stock configuration. There are a few things that can be done to improve the stiffness. First, the x axis must be stiffened. This is a must. I like putting a 4 mm AL bar between the 2 x axis maker slides and then bolting the sandwich together every 2". After this, there will still be torsional flex on the X. Regardless of what you see online, most of this slop is from the Z and X delrin wheels. You might try the Openbuilds dual v-wheels. They are beefier. I went with Metal v-wheels. Everyone will tell you that metal wheels will destroy the maker slide. I have over 100 hours on the machine and I'm still waiting for my maker slides to be destroyed. Chip shields are a must to protect the maker slide and V wheels from chips. For deeper cuts compressed air jet and or a strong vacuum is a must.
Software is the other factor that can greatly improve the X-carve performance. I've tried many. Peck drills, Helical drills and ramps are a must. Recently, I have been using Estlcam.
http://www.estlcam.com/
I like the simplicity of this package and the developer has been actively improving it. 59$ for a license. It is simple and intuitive, Our students can handle it. The best feature and you must try this is trochoidal milling. Trochodial milling is excellent for soft machines. Watch this video.
https://youtu.be/ORJ-Q3TFW5o
And this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4fn-tP1PuI
The X-carve will never match a 6000$ plus cnc router but, with the proper software and mods it can be an affordable addition to a First team.

[Chadfrom308]

If you are looking for a better CAM system, HSM works or Fusion 360 are both great and are free for students. And you can import solidworks and inventor files (because fusion 360 is basically inventor)

Stiffen it up, aluminum is not like wood. Luckily, aluminum loves high RPMs.

Ball screws or even lead screws should improve accuracy.

Honestly, just try cutting aluminum and see what happens. You will know what you need to replace

[Sperkowsky]

Curious if anyone has similar upgrades they have found to be useful with the shapeoko 3 xl. We don't plan to do much aluminum work with it. Mostly plastic and wood. But, if we can get it to cut aluminum decently well it would be great.

[Gdeaver]

The shapeoko uses a more ridged x axis extrusion than the x carve. It still suffers from delrin wheel flex. It can cut Al just don't try to hog. Look at the video about trochodial milling I posted. It can be very beneficial to cutting plastics like poly carb. The lower friction of the tool path keeps the plastic cool and the cuts clean.

HSM express is a good CAM solution. I have 2 problems with it. The learning curve is higher than other solutions. It is very cnc mill centric. There is a considerable effort needed to get it set up for soft machines like the X-carve. If you don't get it right it is very easy to crash and burn. We use solidwork and train our students hard. I've run HSMexpress past some students and have received the deer in the head lights look. That's why I like Estlcam. I worked with a few students with it. Had them watch the videos and then work thru a couple set ups. They got it first time. No dazed looks.
While the x-carve served us well this past season, We are in the process of retro fitting an old Gerber Dimension 200 that was donated. Looking forward to running a stiffer machine next season.

[ptan]

Personally, I like Cambam -- http://cambam.info/

Simple, basic, 2D CAM software that can take in DXF files from Inventor or other CAD packages (I use Geomagic/Alibre) and generate toolpaths and gcode.

[jkelleyrtp]

Just so everybody knows...

• We do use HSMWorks/HSMExpress
• We CAD in Solidworks so the HSM packages play nicely with our parts
• We have the Dewalt 611
• We get our endmills from http://www.ebay.com/usr/drillman1?_t...p2047675.l2559, mostly 3 flute Tungesten Carbide with the VIPER coating

Mostly we've been cutting 5052/53 sheet and 6061 tube. For us, cutting tube is a major need that is hard to achieve with the X-Carve due to it's somewhat low repeatability.

We use the Easel program that comes with the machine and import our G-Code generated from HSM. It's helpful because our students can see the G-Code visualizer before running the machine just to take a cursory look over the toolpaths.

[Bill Clark]

I'm a big fan of HSM and it works great - easy to learn and integrates well with Inventor