How To: Shapeoko Pro Calibration, Tramming & Surfacing | CNC Router Woodworking

uh hello everybody i'd like to welcome you to sam  craft today we're going to get really nerdy and   geeky with the say kapoko pro everybody my name  is sam and welcome back to samcraft that's right   today we're going to totally geek out we're going  to bust out some fancy tools and dial indicator   and some other things because we're  going to calibrate square verify tram   and surface all sorts of stuff on this shipoko pro  cnc now they make some specialized equipment and   tools for tramming cnc machines that are much  better than what you're going to see me use   those things are also a lot more expensive  than what you're going to see me use   and those people are getting more precise  and being more finicky over measurements than   what you're going to see me be that being said  here's the procedure for how i trammed my cnc   first things first let's go ahead and start with  a sheet of plate glass and level it according   to our router on the cnc this is going to be the  first step of trimming the router itself to make   sure that it is exactly perfectly perpendicular  to the surface of the waste board or the base   of the table or the machining platform so let me  give you 100 miles an hour looking out the window   there it went version of how to level the plate  glass which is step one of this whole process   you want to get the piece of glass from your  hardware store find a location on your machine   where you want to set it up and using pieces of  paper you're going to shim it all around until   it's perfectly level to your router now the way  you find that is perfectly level is you want to   somehow stick a dial indicator on your router  and move it left right front back and all over   that glass until it reads the same measurement  all across what i ended up doing was using a   scrap little piece of wood with a hole drilled on  one end to clamp around a quarter inch end mill   and then i used a wood screw and attached my dial  indicator to the other end of this piece of wood   you don't have to make something exactly like this  to level the glass but this piece will be useful   for the training sequence which is done after the  glass is level now truth be told i spent a lot of   time trying to get this thing level and got very  frustrated i don't know if i'm not very precise or   whatever but i could see my dial indicator moving  around as i was pressing on things here and there   and i ultimately just had to go with what was  good enough for sam's standard i don't plan on   machining anything that needs high precision i'm  going to be doing woodworking out of this machine   probably 98 of the time the only times i really  see myself sticking metal on this thing is i want   to make some branding irons or stamps or something  of that sort and the tolerances or something like   that is pretty forgiving anyway so just keep  that in mind as you watch this video that this   is sam's okay with the precision level and it's  not exactly 100 dead on if you want to go crazy   and make yours 100 dead-on go for it you have  better equipment or more patience than i do with the glass perfectly level i could then begin  to trim the actual router and spindle mount itself   this took a long time as well the fact that my  dial indicator was i rotated it would become   unvisible to me because it's facing the other  way was a big annoyance and a big hindrance and i   fiddled with that for a very long time what i  ended up doing in the end was using some machinist   blocks some one two three blocks that i got from  amazon and i used them along with a set of feeler   gauges to just get it right as good as i could  do with me as precise as i was happy with as far   as getting the router mount level left to right  it was pretty easy using the one two three block   stacked up on top of the glass i knew the glass  was perfectly level so i just set it with feeler   gauges and everything and made sure i had the  same amount on left and right of the spindle mount   pretty easy as far as going front and back how  the spindle would tilt away or towards you as   you're looking at the machine dead on i got an  idea from a friend of mine over at the shapoco   facebook group there's a link to that down below  he said just get a cheap set of feeler gauges and   sacrifice them whatever thickness you need to move  the top or the bottom out stick that feeler gauge   in there behind it and clamp it down that was  super good advice that was amazingly easy to do   and i'm very glad that i had the moment to  talk with him and he gave me the idea and it   sunk into my noggin i've seen other people putting  clamps on their rails and trying to twist the   gantry this way and that way to get it right  and honestly that's got to be a nightmare to do   doing what i did was hard enough and it's kind of  like shortcut city i could not imagine unbolting   the gantry rails and twisting it and trying to get  any kind of precision out of this thing so i would   highly recommend doing this route because pretty  easy is what i would say if asked about that while i'm in the mood to torture myself with  my machine i might as well check its squareness   and then check the calibration of the motors  both x and y axis make sure that when i tell   the machine to move it a set distance that these  stepper motors are doing the correct thing and   actually moving that set distance so let's  keep going with this fun time of stuff i'll   start off by checking the squareness and i'm  just going to use the easiest thing i can just   corner to corner and i'll just make sure  they're the same on both sides that i choose   hopefully this is accurate i really  really hope so so we are at 56 and uh what you 50 yeah i can read a tape  measure i promise 56 and 15 16 so 157 please please please not dog wow okay this thing is perfectly  square good you may advance to the next level   i'm going to swipe out my quarter inch end mill  for my v bit because that's going to give me more   of a pinpoint precise location to mark and measure  travel distances with i'm using some of these   park tools they're actually bike wrenches for  the spindle or collet nuts and all that these   are super awesome if you don't have a set of  these and you got spindle work that you do you   need to get some they're really cool and they're  affordable there's a link for them down below a methodology for checking the calibration of my  motors is one that i saw from another person's   video on youtube there is a link below to this  video it is very detailed and was very helpful   for me in doing this procedure so i'm not taking  the credit i'm passing along the credit coin   to the person who i watched and learned a lot from to summarize the procedure for calibrating and  checking your motor steps to reality you use   custom g-code commands to move the machine a set  distance then verify that distance with a tape   measure or other measuring device i chose to move  508 millimeters which is the same as 20 inches   for my y and x axis verifications again see the  video below for more details on this process   from someone who did a much better  technical explanation of this process   i am all done calibrating my machine  thank goodness my x and y motors were   correct right out of the box straight from the  factory good job carbide 3d also my machine is   perfectly square awesome that's a very good thing  the pro is supposed to be self squaring but you   never know until you measure and mine was dead on  as well i am so glad that the squareness and the   motor calibrations were correct because honestly  tramming that thing was a nightmare enough   and i was kind of planning just to skip the other  two but i'm glad i didn't in the end i now know my   machine is square my motors are correct x and y  and my router spindle mount is trimmed so now i   can begin surfacing my waste board so that i have  a nice flat surface for my stuff to go on top of   in order to figure out exactly how  large of a surfacing job i need to make   i need to measure the travel of my machine  i'm going to put this thing in the far right   corner and travel all the left and measure  the distance and do the same thing front to   back to find out real life what size  of a square i can do on my machine i have finagled around and jogged around and found  the actual real life footprint i guess you could   say for the cutter from my sapoco pro and i am at  34 inches wide and 33 inches deep i put those four   corners of that measurement marked on my waste  board so that i know to zero from them and run my   flattening job now for the flattening job all i'm  going to do is set my material to be 34 inches   wide 33 inches long or deep whichever way you're  looking at it and tell the carve code to make a   pocket cut at .1 inches in depth i will zero off  the back left corner and let it run hopefully   this won't take too long but it's a pretty big  surfacing job so let's go ahead and load it up   design it in carveco and load it into carbide  motion for surfacing i purchased a white side name   brand one inch wide or cut diameter spool board  surfacing bit this is about 20 bucks on amazon   and people seem to like it pretty good this is the  first time i've used it so it still has the little   gel whatever glue coating on it let me  go ahead and cut that off real quick   all right all done and cleaned off now i'll use  my two wrenches here swap out my bit this top one   is a 13 millimeter this bottom is a 22 millimeter  and that's what fits the carbide name brand router now we can tell the shipoko to set  the depth that we loaded a tool   we are all ready to set this thing back in that   far left corner that's where i set  my origin for this surfacing job   go ahead and set it and run the job and  begin surfacing this wasteboard so let's go that waste board is all surfaced and now it has a  nice size pocket in it which kind of bugs my ocd   but it's okay it is as big as the machine can  cut so i at least now know my safe areas to   the outside i guess so i did learn a lesson with  the surfacing bit as it relates to the bit setter   and the lesson i learned is hmm it  wasn't exactly correct on its depth   the surfacing bit kind of goes outside the bit  center and it touches it and still activates it   but it's not the cutting edge itself  that activates the bit center it's more   of the other parts of the cutter and so  that made this job cut deeper than i was   expecting or told it to i don't exactly know a  way around that unless i disable my bit setter   in carbide motion and then run this job and  then remember to re-enable it for other jobs   i guess i just answered my question then  so yeah if you have this and you have a   bit setter make sure you disable the bit setter  manually zero all your axes and then run the job   otherwise you might run into issues like i did  with your bit setter not exactly referencing off   of the blades itself for the surfacing bit and  cutting a little bit deeper than you want all   things considered it still worked out fine i still  have a perfectly flat waste board and i now have   done all the boring things with the cnc to move  ahead with more projects not that i didn't make   projects before i made a handful of things  but at least now i know my machine is square   my motors are calibrated my waste board is flat  and my router is trimmed and all that awesome cool   geeky nerdy stuff i appreciate you guys watching  as always if you have any questions or comments   leave them for me down below otherwise take  care i'll see you guys next time in the workshop you

Channel: Samcraft

Views: 11,797

Keywords: woodworking, samcraft, shapeoko pro, shapeoko, shapeoko pro xxl, cnc router, how to calibrate stepper motors, how to tram a cnc, cnc tramming, shapeoko tramming, shapeoko pro tramming, shapeoko pro surfacing, shapeoko pro calibration, shapeoko pro setup, how to surface a waste board, how to surface a wasteboard, wasteboard surfacing, waste board surfacing, cnc woodworking, carbide 3d shapeoko pro cnc router, x axis calibration, y axis calibration, spoilboard surfacing

Id: _j5BZYhvfwU

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021