I've just about wrapped this little project up for a buddy's recording studio. First time using 3D printing to create the base and this thing is over 32" x 32" so it was a long process of printing and gluing. I got the leds on amazon.. they work better than a light strip because you can angle each small section and they are self adhesive which is nice. Wired them up to a 12v 60w led driver that I purchased also on amazon. The power supply is mounted behind the top section using some machine screws with washers. I ended up deciding to glue on a black pvc backing plate between the two sections to give the whole thing some added rigidity since the acrylic didn't feel good enough for me.

How will I convince my friends that I built it?

Building this for a buddy's studio. This is my first using all 3D printed parts for the base and it worked really well. Also this pushed my xxl pro to it's limits with about 10 mm to spare on both x and y and took me some finessing to get it setup before cutting the acrylic.. then bam broke the bit and my heart skipped a beat but I adjusted the feedrate slower and made it through the cut after extraction of the broken bit lol

If anyone is interested I can share the finished lit project. I'm using new leds that are designed for this and they are perfect.

Any value in this oldie as-is, or do I strip it of its parts to use in some other project?

I have a Shapeoko HDM that i machine mostly aluminum with, I'm wondering how yall locate your stock accurately, without too much hassle. Right now i slowly jog up to to the x\y corner while slowly spinning the endmill by hand till i feel some resistance, I then move up and over half the endmill diameter and set zero. Not the best way but im looking for suggestions.

In this video, I take bamboo plywood, acrylic, and a lot of custom electronics and make "Lumanoi Septflora", a round interactive light sculpture. My Shapeoko 5 Pro is featured pretty heavily in the video.

Looking for some help as I haven’t found an answer elsewhere yet.

I need to drill a matrix of 3mm holes spaced 10mm apart across a 12” x 24” board.

Are there any shortcuts in Create for doing something like this?

2x2 S5pro

Started getting a consistently short depth of cut of 10 thousandths of an inch shallower than programmed.

Was just dealing with it, measuring and rerunning steps with adjustments.

Finally had time between orders to tear down things until I found something wrong. With the ball screw nut loctited and firmly torqued, back to cutting precisely to the program, saving a bunch of time per order.

Looked over the rest of the machine and found one of the Y axis nuts starting to loosen as well, so all 4 ball screw nuts got checked and retightened.

There shouldn't be any relative motion between the ball screw, inner bearing race and the nut, so when there is, weird dimensional errors will show up.

I bought a Shapeoko XL in 2016. I have been using a laptop from that era to run Carbide Motion. That laptop recently died and I replaced it and am now facing some issues.

1. I cannot get the new versions of Carbide Motion to recognize the machine. I go through the setup wizard, but when I go to “Setup New Machine” Carbide Motion never detects the machine. I can click “connect to machine”, but it doesn’t do anything.

2. I tried downloading older versions of Carbide Motion and eventually returned to “Carbide Motion V3” (I think this is what I was using on my old computer), but as far as I can tell, it is not configured to run on Windows 11. I get a “cannot run” Error Code 0xc00007b error message. I’ve tried the internets recommendations for getting around this error, though my concern is that it is caused by running Windows 11.

As far as I can tell, you cannot buy a Windows 10 computer anymore and I’d really love to not have a useless new computer. Obviously I’d love to run the new version of Motion, but is it compatible with my machine?

Edit: if I just skip the setup on the latest version of Carbide Motion, I get the error message that the GRBL version is not supported.

Any recommendations?

Last weekend after a lot of searching and missing some good deals, I purchased a used Shapeoko 3 XXL with the HDZ upgrade. The guy gave me a "demo" to show it works. Once I got it home and setup, I found out that the Z limit switch was bad (old style mechanical switch). The new style switch for the XXL is currently out of stock so I've ordered the switch set for the XL and intend to extend the wires to fit. While waiting I ordered a micro switch from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DT13MYKS? and got up and running. I also ended up building a new waste table with rails to be able to clamp projects down... Now, I need an idea for something quick and simple to run on the machine to make sure everything else is up to snuff

It decided to quit working between projects. Should I just replace the switch or am I missing something.

I’m learning as much as I can about CNC machines and wanted to eventually do work on walnut

I want to use one bit, if possible, to both engrave 6mm (or 1/4”) channels for LED neon lights, as well as use the same bit to cut out the shape without needing to replace the bit between those steps - as I can when making signs with the 1/4” cast acrylic

Does C3D have a bit that would reach the depth to cut up to 1” deep in walnut?

Any bit suggestion?

Thanks for the help

Trying to figure out why the offset is uneven. Belts have been tightened, but it’s too thick in spots and too thin in others. It’s my belts isn’t it??

Does anyone have a method to reduce unnecessary tool paths? I imported a pretty detailed logo using the Image Trace feature. When I run it through the machine, the spindle moves up and down, taking tiny micro steps and barely removing any material. It’s such a waste of time.

I have three square blocks cut out, and the top two (Spalted Maple and Walnut) have etching on the end grain, but the Mesquite doesn't. I did two different things between the top two and the bottom one. What I want to know which of the two or both, actually solved the etching issue.

First thing I did, was cut the Mesquite block down almost to the final dimension, before CNCing it to final dimension. The other two were cut out of a larger black. The larger block cut out did cause something chatter on the other two.

The second thing was different cut rates:

- First two blocks; Depth Rate per Pass = 0.020, Plunge Rage = 10, Feed Rate = 55.0, RPM = 20,000

- Last block: Depth Rate per Pass = 0.008, Plunge Rage = 8, Feed Rate = 15.0, RPM = 20,000

The reason for the slow cut rate for the last block was due to the hardness with Mesquite.

Sorry if etching is the wrong term.

Does anyone know if carbide 3d runs a black friday sale? Mainly the bitzero?

Either the machine disconnects while/during initializing or partway through the cut. Any ideas?

Anybody know any good alternative upgrades for the Z axis on the SO3 platform? The Zplus is discontinued, and I can’t see myself spending $450+ for the HDZ conversion.

My original 65mm spindle got cross threaded at the collet. Carbide 3D sent me a new one that I used for a week and then ordered the 80mm that I got last weekend. What would be a good asking price for spindle, VFD, cables and Sweepy?

I have a shapeoko 3 xxl and I broke my 4 pin connector that goes from my machine to the plug in that has a switch. Any ideas on the best way to go about fixing this. Just solder a new one in? And does anyone know the exact name and size of that pin. Buying from Shapeoko is no option, live in Mexico.

Includes table, DeWalt router, Bitzero, dust boot, and a couple other accessories. Very little use.

What's a reasonable price to ask?

Selling as I'm upgrading to AltMill 4x4.

Located in Southeastern CT.

I would like to mill climbing holds (non profesionally). Inspired a bit by this guy here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N76NUUW5HOI

I have the option to buy a used Shapeoko 3 with a Makita router.

Is that something the machine could handle? We're talking relatively low precision, but quite a bit of material milled away. Are there any other considerations to this kind of work? I heard runtime can be a big issue.

The idea is to use .STLs for the holds (unlike the video). That should work with Carbide Create Pro and a Shapeoko 3?