As I type this on September 12th, 2017, my Gatton CNC is basically finished. I can plug in the drive box and use it at any time. I’m struggling to refrain from doing so, however, because there are still a few things to be done. Chief among them is cable management.[expand title=”Read More”] On my old Shoestring Budget CNC, my cable management system boiled down to an, “It looks good hanging right about there,” approach. On the Gatton CNC, however, that’s just not going to cut it. Or maybe it will. Let me explain. The Shoestring Budget CNC was pretty small, as I explained in Episode 2 of my…

After keeping it under wraps for over 6 months, I finally revealed the secret lurking in The Magic Box on the final episode of The CNC with Dave Show at the end of July, 2017. That secret was that I’m building a Gatton CNC.[expand title = “Read More”] The project was kept under wraps for a couple of reasons. One reason was because a lot of work had to be done before I could even start the build. I’ve made it no secret that I basically work out of an over-glorified garden shed. My shop/shed is 8’ wide and 12’ long on the outside. Every tool I owned was piled…

There are times when you need to join vectors to create a profile toolpath, but in doing so, you’ll also have to trim away vectors or sections of vectors that you can’t eliminate. What I mean by that is that if you trim a vector, you lose that vector’s shape, or you lose some detail you’re trying to save. Take the picture below for example.[expand title= “Read More”]   Obviously, it’s a representation of the state of Michigan. The author of the file* wanted to join the Upper Peninsula to the main body of the state using two arcs to connect them. To compound the issue, he also added the…

The Breakout Board and Mach3 Toolsetter Screen Set This is a companion article that goes with my YouTube video, posted here. Easily, the most popular question I get is how I hooked up my Triple Edge Finder to my Xylotex Drive Box for use with my Shoestring Budget CNC Router. This article is part 1 of a series in which I’ll explain what I needed to buy, how I hooked everything up, what settings I used in Mach3, and how I use it in normal day to day operations. [expand title=”Read More”] To get started, we’ll need to get the Triple Edge Finder itself, obviously. You can get yours over at…

Converting from Metric to Imperial is easy. Have you ever imported a DXF file into your Vectric software, only to find that it’s incredibly huge, or unbelievably small? Well, maybe the vector file was drawn in a different unit of measure.  [expand title=”Read More”] When you import a DXF file into VCarve, Aspire, or Cut 2D, the software imports the file as drawn. It doesn’t convert from one unit of measure to another. So if you’re working in Imperial units and import a file that was 200 mm long, Vectric assumes that it’s 200 inches. Obviously that’s a problem. Usually, converting those vectors from metric to Imperial solves the problem. To…

One of the side effects of importing vectors from a separate CAD or graphics program is that you’re importing those vectors as drawn by the file’s creator. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, it can lead to side issues if some of the basics aren’t addressed. Among these basics are the numbers of points in the vectors and what type of vectors they are. [expand title=”Read More”] As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, there are three types of vectors: arcs, curves, and lines. All vectors are based on one of these three types. It may or may not be readily apparent as to which type of vector the file’s…

Sometimes we get what looks like a design that’s ready for toolpathing, even though it’s not.  Trying to calculate even simple profile toolpaths just won’t work. Sometimes you’ll get an error message in VCarve, telling you that a certain number of vectors will be ignored if you proceed. In most cases, this error message is caused by open vectors that just need to be joined. But what do you do when they won’t join? [expand title=”Read More”] Normally you can just select the open vectors and use the Join Open Vectors tool in the Edit Vectors section. But what if that doesn’t work? In the video, I’ll show you some different…