2017 neighbor sign project

Dan Noren

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falcon heights, minnesota
since they are moving after 20 years, i decided to do something nice for them. it will be a stacked text sign, with their names. first names painted, first with a bright yellow, then with gold paint (thanks for that tip dave!). got the walnut blank cleaned up, and ripped to width, and started the fun. well, about 43k lines in, the fun came to a stop. checked with bill arnold (turns out, he ran across this as well), and found that it was a problem with using an older version of universal gcode sender. after downloading, and setting up, it was just shy of 156k lines done (still going when i left). nailed the restart right on the head. hopefully done fairly soon.
 

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Curious have you had any difficulties in letting machine run without monitoring?. Does it over heat or break bit or other stuff?
It would make me a little nervious.
Very nice looking sign. But then you do the best work.
David
 
checked with it this morning (a little over 13 hrs running), and still going...

Looking good! Have you started looking at options to add maybe a router to the cnc next season? Looking at the size of the sign it's a little larger than the two-level wedding signs I was doing last year. I was taking passes at about 60 ipm, .1" deep per pass, 40% overlap and running a finish pass on the lettering and still wasn't more than 20 - 25 minutes of machine time with switching between 3 different bits. Mine is just running an old roto-zip for the router, which takes up to 1/4" bits.

If you're comfortable with what you got, that is fine, I just think the time your jobs are running are way long for what I know others with similar doing on similar projects on similar machines. You'd be able to speed up your production and still get as good of quality hogging material out and doing light finish passes with a larger router.
 
As I sit here in the shop, watching the machine go on it's rounds, I have learned some very good lessons, as this is my first time doing this. One, make sure that the software is up to date, two, get a quarter inch bit to hog out the majority of the waste areas, then let an eighth inch bit take care of the rest. That, and lots of thin passes takes a lot of time.
 
not sure what happened here, and i'm including pics of the settings for both layers. first warning should have been when after the first layer was done, that it was 3/16", instead of 1/8". should have added 1/16" to the start depth of the second layer, but added to the bottom end, and got one air pass to start with. for some reason, it just kept pocketing until i cancelled the program. it was starting the passes for an over all depth of 3/4". the plan for this one, was not to go any deeper than 1/4" total. i'm going to check this out, but any input will be appreciated. drat! :pullhair:
 

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i think i have figured out the way too deep, should have made the zero depth 1/8", and the final depth 1/8" as well. as for taking so long, i have a 10% overlap, so i think i'll change that to 40%, and cut way back on the number of passes, and see what happens....
 
not sure what happened here, and i'm including pics of the settings for both layers. first warning should have been when after the first layer was done, that it was 3/16", instead of 1/8". should have added 1/16" to the start depth of the second layer, but added to the bottom end, and got one air pass to start with. for some reason, it just kept pocketing until i cancelled the program. it was starting the passes for an over all depth of 3/4". the plan for this one, was not to go any deeper than 1/4" total. i'm going to check this out, but any input will be appreciated. drat! :pullhair:

Can you attach your vcarve(?) file? Would need to see the start/end depths of each layer and the overall project settings. As a rule of thumb, your depth per pass should be about 1/2 the diameter of your bit, but also depends on your speed, chip-load & material; but I'll usually start a little under half and adjust.

The sign details look good to me, I'd probably get out a chisel and clean up the pockets on that one and call it good.
 
the files are over at the shop, should have brought the flash drives home. either way, i had both of them set for passes being the same depth, .0313 inches, and only 10 passes for the bottom layer.
 
Here's the process that works for me on stacked text:


Overall setup:
StackText1_OA.jpg
When I save the gcode, I do it in two files. One is the hogging with a 1/4" end mill for both VC1 and VC2. I use a 30° bit on which I filed the tip flat to about 1/32" so it makes a cleaner bottom on the fine carve.


Steps one and two set up both the hogging and fine passes:
StackText1_VC1.jpgStackText1_VC2.jpg


On this sign, the text at the bottom is a simple vcarve:
StackText1_VC3.jpg


Voila!
Bradley_1b.jpg


The entire carving process for this one took about 6 hours; 2 for the hogging with the 1/4" bit, then 4 hours for the detail.
 
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after some sage advice, and re-rigging the code a bit, got started on the second try. the first layer finished up in about an hour and a half without any problems. started the second layer, and it was running like a champ, was going to be done in a touch over 2 hours. well, with less than 2 minutes to go, is when that ol' snake bit again. turns out that it wasn't anything with code, but something that got in the way of the z axis, and stopped it just long enough for the machine to think it was elsewhere. offending item was removed. oh well, try number three coming up soon....
 

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ok, as they say, third time was the charm. failed with walnut, failed with ash, worked ok with white oak. checked all of my settings, and restarted. planed the board nice and smooth, and hit it with a coat of stain. then got it on the cnc, and started the first layer, and it went ok. started the second layer, and it went ok. cut the date without any problems. trimmed the sides down to size, and touched up the stained areas. cleaned up any odd bits, and gave it all a coat of shellac. gave it to my dad's neighbor today, and he just loved it.
 

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