Shopbot
4/11/18
Select a piece of wood from under the table in the Shopbot room. Make sure there is lots of space so the piece isn't too small. I selected this piece, which is 16 inches wide, 10.5 inches long, and 3/4 inches thick. Open up VCarve on your computer, and click New File. Enter the size values into the Setup boxes, making sure the unit is inches. click OK when finished.
Your screen should look like this, with the file size the same as the actual wood size
4/12/18
I'm going to make a miniature Captain America Shield. The tools exist on VCarve that I can design it myself. Click the Draw Circle button under Create Vectors. I make the center point (8, 5.25) because this is the exact center point of the page(X-axis is 16 inches, Y-axis is 10.5). I make the diameter 10 so it's not too close to the edges. I click create, and the circle appears, centered.
Now I make another circle, this time with a diameter of 8.5. Same center point.
Now I make a THIRD circle with a diameter of 7. Same center point.
Finally, I make a FOURTH ciircle with a diameter of 5.5. Same center point.
Hit close and select the star button. Keep the number of points at 5. Change the center point to (8, 5.5). Make the outer radius 2.3 inches. make the inner radius percentage 40. This will thin out the star.
Now that we know the shape will fit in the confines of the piece, I need to change the size of the board to match the ShopBot. Go to edit and select "Job size and position." Make the Width 96 inches and the Height 48 inches.
Highlight all the lines and use the arrow keys to move the shape over to the bottom left corner of the piece.
Select the "Switch to toolpaths tab" button. Select the 2nd ring and click Profile Toolpath.
4/13/18
Change the cut depth to 0.25 inches, and the start depth at 0. Click enter. It will bring up the 3D view, and you'll be able to see how deep the cut goes. Click close.
Repeat this process for the other rings and the star. DO NOT DO THIS FOR THE OUTERMOST RING. Make sure the depth is consistently at 0.25in. It should end out looking like this. --------------------------->
Now select the outermost ring. Select Profile Toolpath again, and change the cut depth to 0.85 inches. This is 0.1 inches bigger than the board thickness, which is how you cut through a piece.
Check the 3D view. There should be a blue line UNDERNEATH the wood, so you know it will cut through. Check to see that all the lines you want are there.
4/16/18
Save the toolpath, and save it as an (Inch) (.sbp). Name it something you can remember and find easily.
4/18/18
Now it's time to cut out my design! I save my design onto the flash drive and head into the Shopbot room. First, I grab my piece of wood and drill 4 holes into it. MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR SAFETY GLASSES. Once the 4 holes are drilled, I grab 4 screws. I drill the screws in, and my piece is secured.
Log on to the computer. Insert the flash drive so tour file is on the computer. Open Shopbot 3. A small red box and a white and blue box should appear. Click the yellow Move Box button.
A yellow box should appear on the screen. Move the Shopbot drillbit to the bottom left corner of the piece. You can do this by clicking the arrow keys on the computer keyboard. Position the drillbit DIRECTLY above the bottom left corner. Now we need to Zero the axes. To do this you need to grab the metal plate from the arm and place it below the drillbit. This way, when the bit lowers to zero the z-axis, it will hit the plate and won't dig into the wood. Next, attatch the copper clip to the black rubber piece on the top of the drillbit.
Go to the [Z]ero dropdown menu and select Zero 2 axes (X and Y). After this is finished, go to [Z]ero again and select Zero Z-axis. This should lower the drillbit onto the metal plate. Put the clip and the plate back where they belong. Go to [F]ile and select [P]ART FILE LOAD. Select your file from the flash drive and load it.
Run a 3D offset. Make sure the drillbit doesn't go off the piece of wood or crosses over a screw. Unfortunately, The largest circle was off the piece, so I had to delete the outermost circle. I also noticed that the other rings and the star didn't cut during the offset. I forgot to check a box, which led to most of the toolpath being lost. Due to time constraints, I couldn't fix the mistake.
Now run the file again without the offset. Make sure you turn on the vacuum first! The drillbit should lower and cut the piece. MAKE SURE YOU ARE WEARING EYE AND EAR PROTECTION! When finished, move the arm away from the wood so you can unscrew the wood and toss the remaining wood. Due to my mistake, only the circular outline got printed. It was also too far up, which caused the original circle to be too large. For my final project I will try to use the shopbot again so I can fix my mistakes.
