First Handibot project

Hi!

I have been learning and enjoying all things Handibot for the last couple of weeks and thought I should share a small project we did with the kids:

Photos
Video

They are big fans of the Octonauts, so we carved out their logo, so they could protect them at night in their bedroom.
More than happy to provide the files if anyone is interested.
Erich

Erich, fantastic family project.

We hope that you will keep posting your projects here on the forum!

David

Thanks! Will make sure to keep 'em coming

Cool!

What kind of bit did you use? Did it seem fragile during the cutting? What was the material being cut?

Thank you in advance.

Zer gut!

Looks like the kids are really into the project, very well done! In addition to the bit info how did you hold the material and or HandiBot? Russ

Danke schoen!

Yes, they get a big self confidence boost out of these projects
realizing that despite the fact that they are "only" 5 years old they can do stuff.

I ordered one of the 1/8" precision collets after learning that I can't get any small mills with a 1/4" collet.
The material was really just some scrap beech wood board I had leftover from another project.

The entire machining was done with a 1/8" end mill. I'm a total noob at this, so I did lots of air cuts and didn't push the cutting speed (machining time was not a consideration).
The boards and sacrificial material was only held by 2 clamps with the handibot just sitting on top of it held by friction. That was good enough to avoid it shifting.

The bit didn't seem stressed at all (if one can tell). I also ordered some 1mm and 0.2mm end mills and we'll see how they will hold up
-Erich



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 04:42PM by Erich Nachbar.

"The bit didn't seem stressed at all (if one can tell)." I can tell by the sound. You don't want to make sawdust, you want to make chips. A screaming bit will burn up and scorch your piece, it needs to be fed faster into the material. In regards to finding smaller bits with quarter shanks they are carried by all of the major bit suppliers. For learning purposes I used the Eagle bits, not as good as the good ones by a lot cheaper while I was learning. Russ

[www.eagleamerica.com]

I'll be more aggressively cutting next time.

It was Important for me to be able to get bits locally.
Dan-Mar Tool and Supply only has 1/8" and smaller mills with a 1/8" shank.
So in the long run it was more convenient for me to buy a smaller collet.

Here's my first project. It's a simple pencil holder made from five pieces of quarter-inch baltic ply. I used an 1/8th-inch downcut bit, two passes, 2ips cut speed.

1. I imported the file into v-Carve and set it up to fit onto 3 tiles. Because none of the profiles spans between tiles it could just as easily have been three individual files. But the Handibot is all about the tiling and I figured why not get to know it without having to index the router?



2. The workpieces, after some random orbit love.



3. Assembled.



What did I learn from this? Well, I learned that if the tool path intrudes upon x or y zero, the Handibot actually pulls the bit out of the workpiece in that area. If you look at the y axis of tile 2 you can see that the tool path crosses zero twice. When I ran it those small areas were not cut. Good to know.

I also learned that as eager and delightful a little companion as the Handibot is, it's going to need some study to maximize cut quality. Consider the slots on the lower right pieces of the first photo. There is kind of an arc to the long dimension, which you can just barely see. Why? Dunno. I'm guessing the cut strategy can be optimized to eliminate it.

And the last thing I figured out is that having small jobs like this ready to go is a great way to 're-purpose' wood in the scrap pile. I think I'll be using this file to demo the HandiBot.

Nice work. I need to give up on indexing for a bit and move to sheet goods like this.

I just spent the day setting up files for a job, made an indexed base and discovered something. X is 6". The Y envelope is not 8". The Y axis is slightly over 7 1/2". It will try to go to 8", bump, and since there is no feedback the remainder of the job will be ruined. Lovely. Back to reworking the files which is really going to slow this down working with wood. Repositioning without an index across a large sheet would probably be fine.

The other really weird thing is that when you go to X/Y home it isn't where it will really cut. I can't figure this one out at all, but you can't trust your eyes on that one. It will move ~.25" in both X/Y to a new 0. I don't think it does this if you set 0 manually. I need more time with this one.

Z is also weird. Manually set the Z height to your work piece. Run job. Setup for another job with the same material, Z isn't where you left it. You have to 0 it again. Not that big a deal if zeroing was easy, but its a bit tedious. If you do it the way you are instructed to do it is a downright drag.

Great first project Thayer!

Marc, it sounds like your proximity switch offsets didn't default to the correct value. Go to Tools-Shopbot Setup, click next, check the box in the lower left corner for "I have prox switches..." leave the others unchecked. Click next. Click the bubble for "I like doing things the hard way" Enter -.05" for both X and Y prox switch contact points. You are probably set to -.50" which will reduce travel by ~1/2"

I don't quite understand your X/Y home ~.25" movement. Do you have any images to show what you mean?

Z should stay where you left it from job to job IF you don't turn the machine off between jobs. If you turn the tool off, and the Z axis moves up or down, the tool doesn't know and assumes it is where you left it when it was last powered. If you aren't How much is the Z changing from job to job?

David

Thanks David, I'll try the prox advice tomorrow and see if that fixes it. The X/Y home is me not thinking things though. I was comparing a drilled hole at "0" to the bit position. Of course only the edges of that hole were at 0, not the hole. I'd use the brick wall smiley, but it isn't here. With this subject matter I think we all need it. That and the dead banana.

On the Z 0 issue, I don't know what was going on. Further work and that problem went away. Maybe I forgot to set the home once, or my material shifted. No idea, but the issue went away.

OK, I knew I had loaded the provided settings but when I went into setup it says I selected a PRS Desktop. I just reloaded and it still says that. It says the bed size is X 6.5, Y 8.5 and Z 5. It also has the Z zeroing plate selected. The values for the prox switches are at .5 instead of .05.X can get to 6 with that, Y can't get to 8. With your adjustments I can now get to Y 8. The more minor offset from zero makes more intuitive sense to me as well. Thanks.

Glad that worked for you. It sounds like the software defaulted to our Desktop tool, but you've got it all squared away it seems.

Arrived home yesterday from a business trip and my machine was waiting for me. Seemed perfect, given I have the holiday weekend to play with it.

When I unpacked it I found there was no thumbdrive with the software. I seem to recall a post or Kickstarter comment about the thumbdrives being sent out separately but I never received one.

Trying to salvage the weekend, is there anywhere I can download the software and info on configuration settings?

Thanks.

RMW

That amounts to cruelty in my book. I never got a thumb drive, instead ShopBot e-mailed a link to download all the software a few days before HandiBot arrived. I think the link was specific to me because as I recall it was already registered to my username. So maybe there's one for you? May I suggest you check all your e-mails from SB & see if one has a link. Otherwise keep fingers crossed this forum is monitored by someone who can and is motivated to do something about it. Various comments and issues I've read in this forum (including this one obviously) suggest that the HandiBot rollout is going a little rough.

What was that saying about people on the cutting edge better get used to bleeding?

Hi Richard,

You can download the ShopBot control software from [www.shopbottools.com]. Part way down that page you'll see a grey box that says "Current Software" and below that a little there's a link that says " [Click here to download Sb3.8.10] ". Download and install, then connect your Handibot and you should be good to move it around.

Unfortunately that doesn't get you the VCarve for ShopBot design software, so if you can't find the email with the download info give ShopBot a call in the morning and they'll be able to get you hooked up.

Bill

And you can download trial V-carve from vectrix.

Bill/Thayer,

Thanks for the input. I downloaded the software as suggested and found the Handibot profile option was available during the install. Problem solved, I have the 'bot hooked up and can make it move!

I did receive the email with my license info a while back and I have my V-Carve installed. Time to play a bit.

I have to give Shopbot kudos on the tool itself, along with the quality of the packaging, very professional in every way. A lot of thought went into the design and construction.

RMW

Making Chips!!

[www.youtube.com]

Basically the Festool MFT hole pattern - 20.2mm holes on 96mm grid. Hole size was perfect, as tested with some of my precision dogs.

The learning curve is certainly manageable, between V-Carve and the ShopBot control software I could stumble thru this with only minimal need to refer to the instructions. Very impressed with ShopBot's dummy-proofing of the control software... "If you do that then blank will happen, are you really sure you want to proceed ahead...??"

I think my first major project is making a wall-hanging frame to hold it and let me clamp dimensional stock so I can machine the end grain, like for box/finger joints or mortise & tenon.

RMW

Vectric has a YouTube channel with lots of tutorials on using VCarve…some cover drawing and others cover converting those drawings into the various types of toolpaths.

You can also find tutorials on their macon web site, but their YouTube channel is probably easier to find.

I am considering buying a shopBot CNC. As a beginning project I would like to make wooden boxes as gifts. Will the ShopBot cut dovetails to connect the sides? I would also like to decorate the tops and fronts of the boxes. The boxes would be small to medium sizes.

Any help would be appreciated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2014 06:24PM by Spencer D.

Spencer :
The hb won't do "traditional" dovetails as they involve sharp corners that can not be achieved BUT, you can do a rounded dovetail and a lot of other joints that in my opinion look better.
Like everything, you have to know your tools and work with the Strong side...
M


Spencer D Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am considering buying a shopBot CNC. As a
> beginning project I would like to make wooden
> boxes as gifts. Will the ShopBot cut dovetails to
> connect the sides? I would also like to decorate
> the tops and fronts of the boxes. The boxes would
> be small to medium sizes.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.

Hey 0,0, that's a fantastic project! If you want to share it with the community we can get it up on GitHub so you, and others can add and contribute to it.

Where you have those slots, what did you do for clearance? If you're using 1/2" ply, did you make your slot openings exactly .5 or did you make them ever so slightly bigger?

Thanks. It's quarter-inch baltic birch and unless I'm mistaken I dimensioned the slots to exactly that in mm--6.35 to be precise.

I'd like to contribute to the github, but not this particular project if you don't mind.

Not a problem. We're always here if you want us to promote your work. Keep it up, you're clearly doing some really nice stuff!

Actually you should be able to do dovetails with the right jig. You would have to do it similar to how a normal dovetail jig works and use a dovetail bit. The trick will be in generating the code to set the proper spacing. At some point I plan to build said jig so I can offload my dovetail jig.

What kind of dovetail bit do you use? I may have to add this to my list of projects to try out...

Any dovetail bit with a 1/4" shank should work. I found a 14 degree Freud bit with a quick search on Amazon. The trick will be getting the feeds and speeds correct for whatever angle and width you try. The jig will need to be able to hold the board vertically so the bit can move in and out of the face of the board. Do you follow what I mean?

Yup, I believe I got it. I'll see what I can figure out...