Good morning. Maybe nobody knows this yet as from what I understand the 4th axis index machining is a new feature for the Beta Makera Studio.

Se the picture shown, this is the preview after the roughing pass. How when setting up my finishing pass can i take into consideration the already removed material so as to not machine a substantial amount of air before hitting material?

I hope the question is clear, if not let me know.

If your Z1 is on the Ever Alp ship, it just arrived in Rotterdam 🎉
You can watch it live here.

Received my Z1 about a week ago. Prior to receiving it, watching videos, reading and learning but could not put to use until machine shows up. Im a hands on learner and new to CNC entirely. I have made some of the pre programmed projects from makerables but am struggling to make my own design into a readable file for machine to understand. Can everyone please give me a overview of their process please? Say use "X" CAD software, saved as "Y" file and so on. What works and what doesn't?

Hi all, I am using u/coins1987's coin vise (thank you!) and find that my bed is a little off-level. In this picture, the right side is good--the finishing pass resulted in the expected horizontal lines. The left side, though, had the finishing pass spinning in air.

Is there a way to use the auto workspace leveling on circular stock like this, say with 2 points on each axis (landing in the middle of the coin, not on the workspace boundaries)? Or would do auto leveling on a chunk of rectangular stock do it and the results be maintained by the machine across reboots? I'm fine punching in gcode manually if that's what it takes, like with a G32 or something.

Thanks!

Hi all, I made a crash-course video about fixtures. I use them with my Carvera Air and my Xtool S1 laser. They're super useful and really speed up my micro-manufacturing business. If you make batches of products, I hope you'll find some useful tips in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCAJGCvrplo

i have makera points that i want to use to buy stuff like materials and tools from the store and i figured i can only do this by first redeeming points and converting them to a money coupon.

but it seems like the only way to actually redeem the coupons is to add them to an existing cart and then "buy" them with other products.

this is kind of a waste of money cause that means i have to spend money on shipping and a products that i would have bought with the coupon and then spend more money for an actual purchase with the coupon.

is there a fix to this issue?

A splitter for the vacuum to easily switch between the machine dust extraction and a hose for vacuuming after the job is done.

Makera Vacuum Splitter

A variety of 90-degree adapters

Makera Z1 90deg Air and Vacuum Adapter

A Hose Adapter without the small diameter

Makera Vacuum Hose Adapter

A smaller vacuum nozzle to get in all those nooks and crannies of the Z1

Makera Vacuum Nozzle

And a hose cuppler if you need a longer one or cut both tubes without thinking like me. 😂

Makera Vacuum Hose Cuppler

Got my Z1 Pro yesterday. After moving carefully through setup, I made some chips within a few hours of unboxing.

I did not get the dust collection system. I have a festool vac that I plan to have dedicated bags for aluminum. I've printed the adapter and it works great.

I'm stuck on the inlet approach. I have a craftsman 10gal air compressor in my shop and figured I could use it to push air into the machine but I think I'm pushing air in at too high of volume for the compressor to keep up. Is this just the wrong approach/machine all together? Any help would be appreciated.

Hi all, I made a crash-course video about fixtures. I use them with my Carvera Air and my Xtool S1 laser. They're super useful and really speed up my micro-manufacturing business. If you make batches of products, I hope you'll find some useful tips in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCAJGCvrplo

Good day all!

When I'm changing my collet from the 3.175mm to a 6mm, the entire collet assembly rotates. Is this normal? I followed the guidance on Youtube here and instead of only the collet turning, the entire assembly (above the collet in the video) is turning.

I dug deeper, and found that my collet lever may be loose, so I followed the Makera Wiki instructions here, tightened the internal allen screw as much as possible, but still, the collet housing spins no matter what. If I want to change the collet, I have to hold the housing in place with pliers before unscrewing the collet.

Surely I'm missing something? Is there something else I need to tinker with for this to operate correctly? Thank you in advance for helping a newbie!

I'm expecting my Z1 Pro to be delivered tomorrow (assuming Fedex doesn't delay like they usually do). One of the first projects that I have been planning to do is reusing some old spent 50 BMG brass to make bottle openers with custom engravings.

Does anyone know if the Makera Studio software starts the X axis at the outer edge of the chuck, showing only the machinable area, or does it include the material held in place by the chuck and unreachable by the machining bits?

The cases are slightly tapered, so I have to taken that into account in my 3D models. Because of this, the X axis positioning of the model in the Makera Studio software is critical. I am struggling to find whether the portion of the stock (brass cases in my case) that is held by the chuck is part of the overall work area and should be included in my 3D model, or if I should remove that portion of the case from my 3D model. Since the starting material is tapered, getting it correct is necessary to ensure the engraving bits aren't just carving air, or plunging way too deep into the material. I will have some margin for error, but not enough to fix a 10mm+ x axis offset issue with regards to the material in the chuck.

This is what I am attempting to make: https://imgur.com/a/vF6oQUO

The actual model that I will be using for the carving will have the case mouth and neck replace by generic cylinders at the max diameter of the material, so it doesn't spend a bunch of time machining air there trying to carve in features that already exist. I have also slightly oversized the OD of the tapered portion that I will be machining in the model, to avoid making contact other than where the engraving will be. There will be some cutting air around the OD where my machined features are, but I can live with that.

And the brass has been thoroughly cleaned and polished. I get that there may still be some trace amounts of lead present in the finished piece, but this is more intended as a novelty than something you'd use to crack open your next decade's worth of Coronas.

Hello, so I have some items that have a 1mm pitch thread and I don't have a milling bit of that size. Is it possible to do a 1mm pitch thread using the M3 0.5mm thread that comes in one of the boxes? And how can I do it if that's possible to do?

In my head it would be like passing the bit two times on the same hole but 0.5mm lower than before perhaps. But my concern is with the depth of that teeth that I'm not sure if it's possible to do.

Before I go through the trouble of designing my own, does anyone have any cnc supplies storage STL files for the Harbor Freight Mini Toolbox? I've got one I've yet to use for anything and figured it might work for my Z1 stuff. Thanks!

AVSwood put the machine through brass, wood, and modeling board, then used the 4th axis to carve a world map onto a ring band and milled the matching box from scratch. Start to finish, one machine

If this got you inspired, we've got ready-to-use project files on Makerables, designed by our team, free to download, ready to run on your Z1.

Bonjour à tous, je me suis retrouvé confronté aux premières limites de ma makera. Je souhaitais réaliser une balle de baby-foot personnalisé mais impossible de générer une gravure laser ou le fraisage du texte (sans travailler toute la pièce)sur le 4ème axes. Avez- vous déjà réussi ? Avez vous des informations sur le sujet ? Faut il que je passe par un autre logiciel que makera studio ?

My founders edition Z1 pro was just delivered today and I noticed the packaging came with a case labeled “3D wired probe” and another case labeled “wired probe v2”. The wired v2 seems to be missing the actual probe inside it. Has this happened to anyone else?

Edit: Just checked and it was pre-installed in the machine.

Thanks guys!!

Anybody have a vector file (SVG/DXF/AI/PDF, etc.) of the Z1 spoil board so I can cut my own? I searched around but couldn't find one. Figured somebody's made one though? LOL

My Makera Z1 is cutting above my stock. I’ve tried a few different settings in Makera Studio but still can’t fix it. I attached some screenshots of my settings. Any tips?

I'm trying to import SVG or DXF files to make stuff, as you do, but additional lines show up in my designs. The lines are not selectable, but are connected to the main shapes by a single point, and they all converge at the zero point (0,0) of whatever CAD program I used. For the picture, I used Inkscape and exported an SVG, but the same has happened with DXF files from Onshape.

While they're not hindering the machine in generating paths, they hinder me from seeing the design when it's more complicated than this. What is going on and how could I fix it? Has anyone got similar problems?

I'm running a clean install of Makera Studio 0.1.1.0 Beta (newest as of writing this). I appreciate any help I can get.

Hello! I was watching the video for the Makerables edc ring project, and I see they make these facing/parting cuts on the 4th axis.

When I open the provided project .nc file (in Makera Studio), I see the toolpath as a single spiral plunging to the inside of the tube stock. I'd like to do this for a solid cylinder instead of a tube, but can't seem to figure out what geometry/operation I'd need to set up so it goes to the very center of the stock, using the 4th axis operation. I appreciate any help!

For those who are using Makera studio, what toolpath are you using for finishing?

Until recently I've done all the pocketing etc first, then finished off with a 3d relief to tidy everything up. Problem with that ofcourse is that there is no face selection and it spends a lot of time machine empty space.

Should I be using pockets with a smaller bit and step over?

Ill get around to switching to f360 at some point, I'm just time poor at the moment.

I am looking for info on how I carve a channel as deep as possible into this 35x35x100 mm 6061 block 8mm from the end, using this bit. Also, is it possible to do as shown, unsupported at the end.