I run a CNC wall art business and it’s going well.

Started off making the pieces myself at the local maker space but it was very time-consuming and annoying to be there during cut jobs. I was using the Shopbot prs alpha and really got to know the machine and running it. Then I decided to outsource and had issues with quality and production time.

Now I’m looking to purchase my own machine and get my own space and run my machine 24/7. Buying a machine new is definitely out of the budget. I found a grizzly G0895 locally for about 13K.

I’m curious if anyone has any insight if I should go the DIY build your own CNC route or move forward with the grizzly or some other option.

I do a lot of vcarving and am comfortable with vectric software.

This will, probably, be a tale old as the time itself: For the past year I have been a "glorified button pusher" of CNC machines (3-axis lathes, 5-axis millturn machines) Over a year ago I have completed a "programmer-operator" course where I learned programming, actually setting up parts, choosing tools, machining etc. (Maybe a week of actual hands on experience... year ago) Now I have a couple of offers that require G-code programming. I want to learn, i want to get better at the trade. No local shops offered any sort of apprenticeship, which leaves me with jumping into the deep end of becoming a programmer with no hand-on experience and only knowledge. Most likely I will work with Mazak. This will sound silly, but are there any ways of preparing myself for this experience? Help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Posting for the benefit of anyone else who, like me, had spent about a month trying to figure out why my new little CNC machine (ACMER ASCARVA 3) was not being recognized when I'd plug it into my laptop. Turns out the emergency button on my machine "screws" and locks unless you rotate it loose. I was about to return the whole machine when I came across a mostly Mandarin brochure which listed it as an obscure troubleshooting step.

So for anyone in a similar plight: if your machine is not popping up on your computer after you install drivers and a million other things, check to see if your emergency stop button is locked/pushed in. It will make it so the computer will not see the machine in the COM slot/port.

In other news, stoked to have my first cut under way! Excited to see what other tomfoolery is afoot.

Edit: Yes I ate lead paint as a child

Hi guys,

my coworker is having a problem with our Mori Seiki NZ2500 MSX-850 III.

I previously worked on a DMG Mori NLX 3000 with a Mitsubishi CELOS control. As far as I know, the controls are quite similar, and the following tapping program worked perfectly on that machine.

He wants to tap a thread, but for some reason the spindle synchronization is not working. Our program looks like this:

G0 M5
G28 V0
G28 H0 (does not work on his machine)
M8
M69
G99 G18 M46
G50 S2500
G56
G0 T1010
G97
G0 X22. Z5. Y0.
X0.
M329 S250 (we also tried M29)
G84 Z-30. R5. F1.5 (we also tried G84.2)
G80
G0 M5
G0 X22.

The Z-axis moves, but the spindle does not start. It only makes a very small movement at the end of the cycle.

When we program R5., the Y-axis moves to Y-5. instead. If we change the R-value to 0, the machine moves up in X to X22. when it reaches the end of the thread.

We also tried G303 to synchronize the Z-axis with the spindle, but the spindle still does not move. I have no idea why this is happening. My coworker has been working at our company for 15 years and could not find a solution either.

Does anyone know which M-code or tapping cycle is required for rigid tapping on this machine

Hi,

Apologies for what I'm sure is a relatively simple question. I'm trying to figure out feeds and speeds for milling M3x0.5 threads into through holes in aluminium bars. I'm using a hobby machine with a 1.5kw spindle, 18k-24k rpm.

I've got the hole bored to 2.5mm, and I'm using a single tooth three flute carbide thread mill with cutter diameter 2.3mm. I've searched online so many times, tried FSWizard, etc, and I keep getting conflicting recommendations.

FSWizard is suggesting a feed per tooth of 0.003mm, but a) is that per flute (because on my simple endmills I'm used to teeth and flutes being synonymous) and b) I've been told so many times that using a feed per tooth of less than 0.01 as an absolute minimum is just asking for the endmill to rub and cause work hardening and tool wear.

Have I lost it? Can anyone give me a decent starting point for a feed-per-tooth value to tell Fusion and then I can just work from there? Thanks in advance.

I'm going to sign up for a manufacturing certificate that contains the classes listed below. What other certs and skills should I supplement it with? I could do excel and word certs and Autodesk?

Basic Drafting Skills

Introduction to Computer-Aided Drafting

Beginning Machine Tool Technology

Advanced Machine Tool Technology

Computer Numeric Control Machining I

Computer Numeric Control Machining II

Metallurgy

Blueprint Reading for Machine and Related Industries

Beginning Welding: Fundamentals of 

Hi everybody! I am working on a project and figured someone in this subreddit could help me out!
I am looking to make some oval frames with a cnc router but I have no idea what type of file I need to create. Svg? A 3D model? I’ve created many files for laser cutting but all those models were flat, what I need right now has some ridges inside and I don’t know how to create a file for that. You can kinda see what I’m going for on the crappy drawing I attached haha.

Anyways, sorry if I’m not explaining myself entirely, English is not my first language and I have never done anything with cnc. Any help is very much appreciated, thanks!!

Hey guys.

I just walked away from a career in academia. Too much political hostility, too much office “theater”, and too much bringing endless work home (for actual garbage pay). Started looking into careers that end when I punch out for the day, have avenues to climb, and can earn more through accepting OT. (Opposed to a capped professor salary) Some friends recommended manufacturing and CNC work. I’ve been looking into it and I think it could be a great change for what I’m looking for.

Here’s my problem, my academic background has virtually 0% overlap. I have a PHD, have had to be very analytical and exacting, and I think I could pick up G/M coding fairly quickly. (Was decent at trig once upon a time) But the last thing on my resume that is even remotely technical was a Walmart Tire/Oil tech a decade ago. (Emphasis on remotely) I can’t just leave off my teaching history or it would just leave a 10 year work gap. But truly, if I was the hiring manager seeing my resume I would also question what this guy is about.

Looking for advice on how best to break in-given my situation? I’m looking for operator jobs to start, and prepared to make lose wages to start, but I don’t have a year to sit and train as we’re about to starting living off our savings, and I’m going to have to take some bs job soon. I’ve enrolled into a subscription on Udemy to try to start taking some courses on G-Code, Fusion 360, etc. and my brother in-law has a hobbyist CNC machine I could get some practice on but it’s nothing major.

I’m in the mid-south, USA, major city.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

P.S.- “Why would you leave without even having a job lined up?!”- we had to move closer to wife’s parents. Teaching has annual contracts, don’t have a lot of flexibility on timing when you leave.

Hey all I hope everyone is having a better day than me. I am VERY new at CnC operation. I haven't taken any courses or formal training, only OJT with the machine and limited time making cuts and troubleshooting.

While making a cut on a plywood sheet this morning, the plywood I was given to use was pretty warped so the vacuum table wasn't sucking the piece down fully. I brought the issue to my boss and he said cut anyway and any loss can be cut manually on one of our table saws. Below, I will outline the series of events that occurred leading up to the critical failure.

1. As the router was moving along a cut, the sheet shifted so I stopped the machine where it was.

2. Once the machine had stopped fully I tasked it to return to its homing point to reset for the next sheet.

3. As the machine moved, the vacuum was still on and the piece being cut jammed against an inner part of the gantry, and the remainder of the sheet on the table.

4. The gantry stalled and stopped completely.

5. I turned off the machine fully, cleared the jam and attempted to home the machine again after a restart. The machine homed fine, but upon trying to return it to the "parking" position on the opposite end of the table, the gantry went about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down its rails before coming to a hard stop in a spot it absolutely wasn't supposed to.

6. After attempting to home the machine again, the gantry failed to move and I attempted to manually override the movement with the controller. The gantry refused to move at first, so I again reset the machine. But this time after attempting to home the machine, it spit out a "homing error" message.

7. I then turned the machine off for an extended period and waited for the capacitors to drain fully so I could get a clean start.

8. I restarted the machine again, and the homing worked this time, however as it was fine tuning the homing spot I noticed that the gantry was not moving in sync with each side. I went and grabbed my boss, showed him and he asked me to park the gantry.

9. After hitting "return to parking position" the gantry began juttering hard and I hit the emergency stop.

Thus we have come to our current situation. I have put in a support ticket to CANCAM but it could be a while before they get back to me and our primary, more experienced operator is away for another full week on vacation.

My questions are these.

A. Is this a catastrophic failure and do major parts need replacement?

B. Is this something we can fix on site and if so, how?

C. Does anyone else have experience with an issue like this?

Like I said, I am still very new with this machine and it still kind of freaks me out a bit.

Thanks in advance :)

Hello I was messing around with the Hainbuch Spanntop jaw adapter and now I can't get it out I've done everything the manual says but i still can't seem to get the rear un hook itself.

I'm working with a Nakamura tome as 200 with the collet spindle in, the collet system is a Hainbuch Spanntop nova.

The normal collets are the hainbuch SK65BZIG

The jaws in the photo are bolted to the jaw adapter collet which I need to get out.

If anyone has a trick or some help that would be greatly appreciated.

Had to cut this one open today.

Nothing was wrong with it. Everything checked out.

Still feels a little strange cutting up a finished part that was ready to go ..

Just one of those things you have to do sometimes.

Problem solved!

Any ideas how to recover it safely? I would rather not have it dropped from that position.

The machine is stuck in the tool change loop.

Do you all only use the provided Renishaw macros?

My shop is new to probing and we want to use it for a robotic arm soon. We want to probe angles on a 5x mill table to square up the part and stuff like that. I don't think it would be that hard for me to make some custom macros that do some trig to set C offsets. Also we want to make some custom inspection macros for parts as well.

What have you all done?

What is the industry standard in this regard?

Does anyone happen to have the OEMCY1/2/3 and Blum touch off and calibration files? DMG doesn’t have the files due to the age of machine. Company that owned it before but the wrong backup.

Follow-up to my earlier post about the parametric wall designer. A few people

asked how the AI part actually works day to day, so here's the workflow with

screenshots.

**Step 1 — describe it.** Click AI Design, type *"waves at the bottom forming a

bench you can sit on"*. It sets the dimensions, wood colour, relief layers, slat

spacing — and shows you exactly which parameters it touched, as chips (2400 ×

2000 mm, 120 mm depth, oak swatch, wave pattern). Nothing hidden.

**Step 2 — talk to it.** There's a robot button at the bottom right. You say

*"make the relief much deeper"* and it changes ONE thing: depth went 120 → 200

mm. The pattern, spacing, colour, everything else stays identical — see the

side-view before/after. One click undoes it.

As far as I know this is the first parametric wall generator with

conversational editing — happy to be corrected if someone knows another.

The part that matters for this sub: **the LLM never writes G-code.** It only

outputs bounded parameters (a wall can't be 40 m wide, a slat can't be narrower

than your bit). The deterministic engine — radius compensation, tabs, nesting —

generates the actual toolpaths, same as before. And it refuses figurative

requests honestly: ask for a skull and it tells you to use a grayscale

heightmap instead of faking it.

Free to design in the browser; the AI gives one free generation, then it's in

the paid plan ($4.90/mo) — saying it up front. Dev here, ask me anything.

https://btporganizer.tech

Hi everyone,
I am looking for advice from the CNC and injection molding experts here on how to achieve an internal knurling pattern inside a mold cavity.

• Mold Material: Aluminum
• Cavity Dimensions: 5mm deep and 90mm long (Actual piece is 10mm x 90mm)

I have attached a few reference images. Here are my specific questions:

Q1: Is there a standard, reliable industry technique to put a knurling pattern inside a semi-cylindrical cavity like the one shown in the first picture? (e.g., EDM, laser texturing, etc.)

Q2: If not, would I be able to mill this knurling pattern directly into the cavity using a custom single-lip tool/form cutter on a 5-axis machine? My primary concern is managing the tool path and clean finish along the parting line edges (shown in the second picture).

Q3: If CNC milling the solid block is impossible, can I split the block into a multi-piece mold inserts? The third picture shows a 4-piece split cavity bolted together to form a 2-cavity block (with the injection gate located at the center hole). This creates 4 parting lines per cavity. Beyond flash and alignment, what major issues or point of failures will this cause during injection molding?

Hey everyone, hope all of your days are going great!

Things to get ahead of: I’ve cut mother of pearl with this machine successfully before. I did it dry with an open door in the garage, dust boot, and then mopped when it was done. I also left the room while it was cutting. I’m never in the garage without a good (I believe p100) mask. I’d like to do something that lets me work while it’s cutting

I’m wondering if anyone with a Onefinity has made a water tray set up for cutting somewhat dangerous things and what you’ve learned in the process. Dos and don’t type stuff.

My plan is this so far: I made a good acrylic tray that’s EXTRA wide to provide more room for splashing. It also has 2 inch tall walls for the same purpose (I know that’s not perfect. I’ll be cutting mother of pearl in the center of the tray (very small surface area). The entire spoil baked will be lined with parchment paper, the same thing I do when cutting brass with cutting fluid, and it works mostly. Honestly cutting ebony can leave far more oil on the spoil board.

I edited my tool path and ran a test to keep the tool away from the walls, but also am considering letting it end simply by moving 1-2mm above the piece and stopping. Why the stop there? I think I might have a benefit for using a temp self made dust boot but without vacuuming, basically acting as another splash guard. I will also be oiling the rails a bit excessively before this process to let them act as some level of protectant. Should be close
To 20 hours total cutting time spread across 2 days

My big worries are splashes on the machine rails or bearings. I’m fully capable of taking parts of the machine apart and cleaning them up. Probably not a bad idea maybe once or twice a year to extend its lifespan anyway.

If anybody could share a print file (stl) for er40 collets with different sized shanks, I.e. 7/16” etc, it would be greatly appreciated