My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

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gvijil
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My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

This is a 3 ft. high by 4 ft. long 3D Earth Wind & Fire Panel, I carved it on my custom built 3 axis 4ft by 6ft CNC router. 1 million three hundred Thousand gcode instructions, 300 hours for roughing & finishing, plus 2 weeks painting. Carving is 1 3/4 inch Deep.
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Savannahdan
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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by Savannahdan »

Did you run it fulltime for the 300 hours and pause it? Also, what bits did you use and what's the wood and the total thickness of it? That's a total of a little more than 1.75 weeks of roughing and finishing. Wow!

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by ger21 »

300 hours for roughing & finishing
You need a faster machine....
Gerry - http://www.thecncwoodworker.com

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

This is my prototype Earth Wind & Fire Panel, I have already upgraded the power on my Stepper motors, the next panel I cut will be cut at about 225 hours. I designed the 3D image from a picture of a Earth Wind & Fire album cover. To my knowledge I am the only owner of this gcode. I am in the process of designing a frame with an inlay-ed black walnut veneered plywood design around the whole circumference.

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

Also, I forgot to mention that the wood panel is 2 inches thick, I purchased the wood panel which was made from glued spline fingered pieces of pine wood from a company here in northern California, by the name of Perfect Plank. The raw panel cost Approximately $190 dollars.

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

I also, forgot to mention that to cut the roughing cut, I used ( 2) 3 1/2 inch length 1/4 inch diameter end mill bits , and (1) 3 1/2 inch length 1/8 inch diameter ball nose for the finishing cut. I purchased these extra long life & length bits that are spectra coated from ToolsToday.com.

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by TReischl »

gvijil wrote:I also, forgot to mention that to cut the roughing cut, I used ( 2) 3 1/2 inch length 1/4 inch diameter end mill bits , and (1) 3 1/2 inch length 1/8 inch diameter ball nose for the finishing cut. I purchased these extra long life & length bits that are spectra coated from ToolsToday.com.
Firstly, it looks good, nice job.

Your cut times are ridiculous and the reason is apparent. Why in the world are you ROUGHING something that big with a 1/4 diameter end mill? I have posted some larger work here and a video using a 10mm end mill for roughing that is running at a 10mm depth of cut and 350 IPM. I was also cutting pine, but I glued my own up which cost me about $15.

There is no reason to finish that entire piece using a 1/8 ball nose end mill. The vast majority of it could be done with a large endmill. For instance, most of the model (the phoenix) is sunk well below the upper surface. That could be a pocketing cut wasting away lots of material quickly, the same goes for the area beneath the lettering. The entire background could be pocketed around the model with a large endmill. Way, WAY faster. The idea is to waste away as much wood as you can with the biggest tool you can possibly use. Then start using the smaller stuff. I cannot imagine roughing that entire job out with a 1/4 end mill. Your feeds had to be incredibly low because you had a small tool sticking way out past the collet.

Not beating up on you. That was quite a project to undertake and it looks good. BTW, your friends are the cheaper chinese HSS end and ball nose mills. When cutting pine they do a better job than carbide, they are sharper. It takes quite a bit of planning to do thicker work like that but it saves a tremendous amount of machine cutting time not to mention tooling.

One of the issues with work like that is the large roughing end mill leaves does not get into some areas at all. That is ok, what I do is then follow up with a smaller ballnose mill in a roughing cut that is set so it will make only one pass over the piece. There have been times when I needed to do that twice, but it goes fast because the stepover is fairly large and the feedrate is cranking at 300+ IPM.

Here is a link to the video I mentioned above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFA_1PJS32U&t=23s

Notice also that I created a "gutter" around the outside of the piece so I did not have to use extra long tooling. Also made sure to put a draft on the model that was slightly larger than the angle on the tapered ball nose bit used to finish it.

Looking forward to seeing some of this type of work, like I said, nice job.
"If you see a good fight, get in it." Dr. Vernon Johns

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

Thanks for the advise TReischl, another reason I use smaller bits is I made my table from steel plate re-enforced plywood gantry. This machine provided me a way to teach myself CNC carving. But I now agree with you that a long 1/4 inch end mill will put more torque on the frame that holds the router. The HSS tip is also correct because I noticed how much smoother my router was running using a shorter 1/4 inch HSS end mill. I'm also looking to upgrade to a ShopSabare. What would a machine like yours cost ? Is the shank on the 11 mm end mill also 11 mm ? Thats also very close to 1/2 inch dia. shank.

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TReischl
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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by TReischl »

gvijil wrote:Thanks for the advise TReischl, another reason I use smaller bits is I made my table from steel plate re-enforced plywood gantry. This machine provided me a way to teach myself CNC carving. But I now agree with you that a long 1/4 inch end mill will put more torque on the frame that holds the router. The HSS tip is also correct because I noticed how much smoother my router was running using a shorter 1/4 inch HSS end mill. I'm also looking to upgrade to a ShopSabare. What would a machine like yours cost ? Is the shank on the 11 mm end mill also 11 mm ? Thats also very close to 1/2 inch dia. shank.
My machine is home built. Essentially what I did was source key components from CNC Router Parts like the bearing trucks and motor mount plates, etc. I have about 3K in mine. The 10mm end mill has a 10mm shank. I use a Porter Cable 890 router and there are collets available for 6mm, 8mm, 10mm and 12mm. I bought those collets because it allows me to purchase the much cheaper chinese metric bits and use them. I also have a .125 inch collet which works with their small bits.

A lot of us started out the same way you have. My first machine was a typical plywood/mdf gantry. On a machine your size made of plywood/steel reinforced it would be difficult to achieve the higher feedrates needed for larger work.

I am a huge advocate of home built machines for us hobby type guys. The biggest thing for me is that since I built the machine I also have the ability to alter it. About two years ago I needed a lot more clearance under the gantry. All I had to do was purchase two pieces of 8020 type extrusion and install them to gain 6 more inches of clearance. Once I finished with that project I built a sub table for the base to reduce the height again. So now all I have to do when I have something large is remove that sub table. It also helped gain needed clearance for the rotary axis. IMHO a guy who is willing to build his own machine will get the best results with 8020, rack and pinion, and bearing trucks running on steel plate for his dollars.
"If you see a good fight, get in it." Dr. Vernon Johns

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by dwilli9013 »

I am a huge advocate of home built machines for us hobby type guys. The biggest thing for me is that since I built the machine I also have the ability to alter it. About two years ago I needed a lot more clearance under the gantry. All I had to do was purchase two pieces of 8020 type extrusion and install them to gain 6 more inches of clearance. Once I finished with that project I built a sub table for the base to reduce the height again. So now all I have to do when I have something large is remove that sub table. It also helped gain needed clearance for the rotary axis. IMHO a guy who is willing to build his own machine will get the best results with 8020, rack and pinion, and bearing trucks running on steel plate for his dollars.[/quote]

+1 :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by Xxray »

Nice work, epic in fact, and you should most certainly be looking to cut down machine time with advice already offered and more.

Is the background textured or did it just come out choppy ? If so, thats another thing to work on.
Doug

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by Rcnewcomb »

Carving is 1 3/4 inch Deep
the wood panel is 2 inches thick
Since you are in the central valley this may be less of an issue for you, but you may find that the panel begins to warp after a period of time. If the wood is drier than the air it will absorb moisture. If the air is drier it will lose moisture. The impact is more pronounced when more than 50% of the board thickness is removed.

Sign Foam (HDU, Corafoam, etc.) carves well and isn't affected by humidity, but you would have to paint it.
- Randall Newcomb
10 fingers in, 10 fingers out, another good day in the shop

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

To Rcnewcomb : I guess you know what your talking about. LOL !, I had to re-enforce the 2 inch thick panel with clamps, clamping 1.5 inch steel square tubing to the ends of a warping panel. It warped about 3/4 of an inch at full depth of cut. This was not an easy project. I spent close to $600 in raw materials just to produce this panel. I could have been easily discouraged, but I was determined not to let it beat me. But what I learned was invaluable.
I will repost when I have finished it. I'm building an inlayed frame for it. I have to find a way to cut it faster, probably with a machine upgrade. I couldn't sell this panel for less than $2,500. 00 to make money on it. I designed the 3D model and own the gcode for it. I spent 4 months converting it from 2d image to a 3D image.

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

To Xxray; Yes I ran the finishing in base open area's faster which made it a little choppy but I planned for it to be covered by the vinyl starry pattern in the background that you see in the finished painted pics. I also ran a 1/4 inch end mill around the base perimeter to smooth out the background which was done after the unpainted pic that you see.

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Re: My latest Earth Wind & Fire panel

Post by gvijil »

To Rcnewcomb ; I like the Corafoam link you posted. the 2 inch will cost about twice what I paid, but I could also carve two panels for the size of Coraform that I would get. Especially if I don't have to worry about warping. Have you used the Corafoam ? I wonder if I would need a different bit to carve the Corafoam ?

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