CNC Shark Forum

Amazing work!

Are those solid wood gears? Do you run into any problems with expansion and contraction over weather?

Our refurb with USB 1.1 works fine as a controlles PC also. I'm curious if the <$100 Fry's laptops would work as a cheap replacement.

The learning curve is a lot steeper than something like VCarve but it can do much more and there are lots of tutorials out there (check out NYC CNC on YouTube ). Can you recommend a tutorial to start with? I'm curious about using it over VCarve, but I don't want to invest several hours before havin...

That's impressive work! Great video!

Bill, if you're using the 10-key I'm thinking of, what happens if you toggle Num Lock and use the 1 & 7 keys (home and end) to change among fast/med/slow?

Thanks for the picture. I haven't had any problems with my existing clamp (except that I didn't have it secured tightly enough until a few months ago), but I'll plan on ordering an aluminum one if mine ever breaks. It looks very nice. Bill, I didn't realize you'd had your machine about the same time...

Do you have any pictures of the Dixie Billet clamp you could post? I've read a lot about the clamps in several threads, but have yet to actually see how they turn out. Regardless, they've universally praised. I plan on going aluminum if/when my original Shark clamp goes out.

I have the plain CNC Shark, an earlier model. It's been very easy to use and is very easy to get up and running. I expect you'll have an even easier time with the HD4. You'll spend more time learning the software tools than worrying about mechanical CNC setup, which sounds like a good fit.

This is a great question. I worry about some of that, too, but not enough to do anything because it's merely a hobby machine for me. New Wave Automation sells a lot of these parts directly. The stepper motors, for instance, are available here: http://shop.nextwaveautomation.com/shop/category.aspx?ca...

VCarve (and Aspire, I'm sure) has a way to let you tile the same job over and over with the array tool. If your toolpaths are assigned by layers, it's a simple matter of ungrouping the resulting objects and hitting "recalculate all toolpaths". It's also possible to do it by editing the GCODE directl...