my demo sign what do you think

[Steve knight]

I had to redo this sign several times to get it dialed in. used up my last piece if beech when I forgot to change the 3d graphic to a different formant. So I had to use MDF to make it.
but anyway this was made with vcarve pro and cut3d and cut on my shopbot. got to work on the texture it took way to long to cut.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s266/knighttoolworks/signs/finishedsign2.jpg
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s266/knighttoolworks/signs/finishedsign1.jpg

[Wynand Jansen]

Brilliant, I love it!!

[Keith Outten]

Great job Steve, your design is very attractive and should turn some heads. You must be hanging out with Brady Watson :)

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Steve,
Nice sign and I guess a little plug also:D. How long did it take for the MDF sign? Do you have a tool changer on your Bot?

Doing 3D stuff almost always takes a little more prep to dial in your Depths/Z offsets if you change your table around like I do.
Look forward to seeing more from you.

[Steve knight]

no tool changer it would be nice but I could not justify the cost. and since I zero on the material/jig it would be a pain. thought just having the spindle would be nice with a manual change.
this was a bit slow as I had too small of a stepover on the background. it took 1:40 minutes to cut the background and only about 50 minutes for the 3d so about 3 hours total.
I can see doing 3d on your machine may be a pain. I am pretty much always setup for it. but since I do so many little projects it's not so hard. it's harder to make money.
I wanted to ask you How fast can you cut say hardwood plywood really accurately? and how deep of a pass at the time? I find my speed gets limited with cutting tropical woods but bit flex over what my machine can do.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

He Steve,
No Tool Changer:(:(:( I know how it feels. We started with a Digital Tool 904 or 905, in the mid 90's, whose top speed at the time was 400 IPM. At 200 IPM we made money. With in 6 months we were running at full speed all the time. It had a 7.5 hp Perske spindle and a 1/2hp Dayton drill head. Keeping the tool length consistent was a challenge but it did what I needed at the time and it was a stepping stone.

3 hours:eek:. How big was it? it looks like around 24" x 36" but without an item to compare to in the picture, I am just guessing.

It is not that hard to set up for 3D but it takes 2 guys about 10 minutes to swap the dedicated grid spoil board for the universal MDF spoil board that has already been fly cut to the table and then zero out the "Z".

Having an ATC really helps because you can remove a lot of material fast with a 1/2" or 3/4" bit first and then come in with a 1/4" or 3/8" to clear out the remainder of the roughing that the previous bit could not reach. Then use a 1/8" tapered ball nose for the finishing followed by a veining bit for sharp detailing, if needed. This procedure is not required on all 3D but gives you a snapshot of how an ATC can help but if your software can't do rest machining, Z level roughing, or other tool path strategies that speed up the process, by using multiple tools, it will take more time.

We can cut 3/4" plywood around 800 IPM and usually in 1 pass unless it is a small part and we onion skin it. Sometimes faster and sometimes slower. It all depends on the size of the parts and how much straight line versus arcs. We have cut at about 1100 IPM with Vortex's 1/2" Tornado bit but it burns up when you do a lot of arcs. We use Vortex's Viper bits and other similar ones that have a mortise tip so we can dado with the same bit. Depends on the core also. For 12mm Russian birch I may slow it down to 700 IPM with a 3/8" bit or 650IPM for a 1/4" bit.

Also just out of curiosity. If you can send me your file, that I can bring into Artcam Pro, I will do a time study for you to see how much it might save you in time. Just PM me and tell me what kind of files you can export from Vcarve Pro and I will check to see which one would work the best.

[Steve knight]

I checked and found out the texture was set for 11% stepover so it was only doing .01 each pass. thats easy to change. the 3d took about 5o minutes with a 1/8" ballnose and about 9% stepover.
the sign is not big 12x24" there are no spots where the machine can get any speed I bet it never got over 2ips for most of the sign even though it was set to go faster.
me I have work to do when I want to cut a sheet of ply I have to clean my table off (G)
I was going to buy artcam pro but my inheritance was smaller then I planned so that luxury died (G)
I find most of the time I can do 3d work with one bit if the depth is not too great.
No I can see the need for a tool changer but it could be a pain too depending on the machine. for small jobs just having the tool changer spindle would be enough. it's nice to be able to zero on different parts of the table. it's faster and easier then having to add offsets to the toolpaths.
but see now I am arguing for multiple machines (G) but first I need to work harder to get more work. I am not great at selling my services.

[Kevin L. Waldron]

I have legal copies of Vcarve 4.6-Cut3d, Artcam 2008, Rhinocam, and Enroute3.3. I have done time studies of my own on 3d art, and I have found that even among the programs there is substainal difference in speeds. I own a Techno Premium Class with 39 tools and 13 tool holders(tool holders do triple duty and I don't have to learn tool lengths). I find Cut 3d and Rhinocam/RhinoArt(Visual Mill) to be usually faster and Artcam usually coming in last (Enroute is just annoying with the process that it takes to get an stl file to work I rarely us it for 3d), it has to do with the alogritham of the program. I have also found that typically 1 bit in reality is still faster than multi-bits. If you time the files and look at the start and finsh of each file changing bits and not changing bits 95% of the time one bit will be faster than multi. Just my two cents and I have spent hours trying to speed things up. I also have a laser scanner to do point cloud work and have found the same true for this kind of 3d work using Rhioncerous, Alibre, or Autocad to produce 3d models and then trying to route such.

Kevin