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Ya,mine is still working smoothly. I don't know of any recommended lubrication. I just spray some WD40 or whatever else I have available up in there once in a while. Probably a light machine oil would be better, but I don't have that in a spray and I'm too lazy to take the chuck off just to lube it. Mine is still very smooth and grips like crazy just with hand tightening. I like "Vactra Oil No. 2" for machine stuff like this, but you have to drip it in so it requires pulling the chuck off unless you have a way to spray it up into the chuck.

Thank you very much and Merry Christmas to you too.😊

Yes, you can still calibrate linearity and backlash. I have done backlash on mine, and the values are added in the Utility Menu->Advanced config->Mach.->Motor. In there are the settings for Lash comp. I have not yet done linearity calibration on mine since converting (but I plan to soon). In that same menu is "Motor revs/in". Mine is set to 1.01859 by default from AVID fpr X and Y. It is the setting that you would fine tune to adjust the linearity. There is probably a formula listed on Centroid's website or forum for figuring out much to adjust it for a given amount of error, but I found with Mach4 the easiest thing is if you measure your error, make a change to the setting and measure the error, now you know how much the number affects the linearity and its easy then to figure out what the new number should be. Maybe I'll do a quick video on it when I get around to adjusting mine.

One thing that I should mention is that with the EX controller you cannot do sperate linearity and backlash adjustments for the two Y motors. Since they share the same axis output (the slave is just a copied and inverted version of the step signal) they have to use the same parameters. You can measure the error at each end of the gantry, and then just use a midpoint between the two if they are different.

@@JNWoodworks It also looks like you could use the Acorn controller screw mapping and correction capability to greatly improve accuracy in the XY plane. Building the table of correction values for every half inch of travel would be quite a job but it appears that CNC12 would execute the corrections seamlessly. It should work on rack and pinion systems just as well as ball screws.

@@Sehast Yep, Centroid has a LOT of adjustment capabilities. You can also adjust the acceleration that you want to use when the system is changing direction to take up the backlash. However, all of that stuff is IMO a little unnecessar for a large cnc router since the flex and deflection in the system are much larger than the backlash and linearity issues across the rack.....but its there if people want to go to the nth degree :-)

I wouldn't really recommend it for 3/4" plywood, unless you are going to do two sided cutting ( see my video on that). Dense plywood like Baltic birch is very hard to get through beyond 1/2", and software plywood will tend to burn in the lower part.

Thank you. Yes, for engraving organic materials the beam width is very dependent on the power level and feedrate. It is less so for engraving metal and cutting organics because you need such a high power level for that that you are running relatively slow and high power. However, for engraving things like wood, paper, leather, or even doing things like the Norton White Tile method on ceramics, you will get a significant variation in pixels line width so you always have to do a little characterization to figure out what step over you want for fills, or what you want to call you DPI number when setting up a picture raster. Opt has to specify the beam size in a consistent way, so they have some fancy tools to measure beam profiles so they spec the beam size to be something like the area that contains 90% of the total power (or something like that). This gives you a means to compare each laser. However, you can make a significantly smaller line than their spec based on how easy the material burns, and your feed and power level. The beam profile of the laser probably affects this as well. A long or short focal length laser will probably have a different shape to the power distribution.

Hi, I'm glad you found the video helpful. There are a lot less things to set in CNC12 for laser than my last controller. I am currently setting the PWM frequency at around 5000hz. The XT-8 will actually run much faster than that, but it has a limited turn off time that has the effect of limiting the min on pulse of the laser. So short story is that if you want to have a very low power level for test fire, then you want to run it at a lower frequency like 5000. I am currently trying to decide if I need to use 100 or 1000 as the max power value (I have a few experiments to do yet to understand all the nuances of that wrt to applications like Vectric and LaserGrbl, and test firing resolution). If you send me an email at jnwdwks@gmail.com, I can send you a screenshot of the laser wizard window, and answer any other questions you might have. As far as the VCP, I'm not sure what you mean by non-cnc setups, did you mean non-AVID setups? Most of their custom VCP is just to make a cleaner screen for controlling a CNC router/laser setup vs. the packed one that CNC12 has typically had for mills and stuff. Basically they removed a lot of the stuff that wasn't needed on a gantry style machine, and I think did a great job of making the icons look a little easier to read. I think Centroid may be incorportating some of that in their latest router builds of CNC12.

I'm working on that 😀

@ awesome!!

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Yes, those are magnets that I used for stops. Most of the time I don't bother with stops for laser work because the object doesn't move. The main exception is paper and cardboard because the laser fan and air nozzle tend to blow them around. In this video, I just threw the magnets on there because they were handy and I needed to make sure they didn't move even a few thousandths. On the lens cover question, Opt lasers don't have lens covers, the main lens is exposed inside the air nozzle. As long as you always use the nozzle and don't forget to turn on the nozzle air pressure, or get a spider inside the nozzle (that actually happened to me once) the lens will stay clean. I don't do production work (I'm just a hobbyist), but I have run a couple of laser picture rasters that took 7-8 hours and the lens wasn't dirty. I run about 5 lpm of air for light engraving, and 10-15 lpm for heavy engraving and cutting. The outside of the nozzle can end up very dirty, but nothing seems to get into the lens area.

They can use the same power supplies that they have for steppers this way, and electrical safety ratings are easier to deal with under 50v. The power difference only matters is it's not enough, and these move things along just fine.

Thank you!

The dogs are these DCT Woodworking Plastic Bench... www.amazon.com/dp/B076MGP4F6?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share And the clamps are these: Kreg KBCIC In-Line Clamp www.amazon.com/dp/B0774WBGPX?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share The dogs are cheap and hold well. The clamps are not cheap, but they really hold up over time and clamp very well. I haven't had any failures except when I hit them with an end mill 😅. No side clamp holds things down flat to the table, for that I use hold down clamps and usually some oak sticks so I can keep the clamps out of the way.

Agreed, the collets need to be clean. Its the same issue with the standard ATCs, some people use an air jet like you suggest, some just clean them often.

@@JNWoodworks yeah nothing is totally no work you have to do some lol

Could you elaborate more? I'm not sure what you mean by "do the sensors in the software".

Well thats not good. It sounds like you've run your's more than I've run mine so far. I've been mostly doing a bunch of experiments on vibration and laser accuracy. I have not seen any issues like that with mine, the only time I ran the Z axis down was my fault when I got a little careless with the pendant. I guess that could be a motor problem (internal encoder issue), or noise on the step signal from the controller to the motor. Weird. I'm sorry I don't have any good suggestions but maybe to reconnect the Z motor's signal cable at both ends just to make sure it has a good connection.

I know which video you are talking about. Ya, they use the backlash as a means to adjust that right now. I'm currently characterizing it vs. feedrate. These clearpaths are stepper replacements, so they are closed loop within the motor only, as far as the controller is concerned its a stepper motor. The other thing is that this is really a timing lead/lag between the PWM control and the motor control and its hard to build that in to be dead on without needing a little calibrations. The ESS card with Mach4 is the same way.

Hi Scott, I am actually working on some of that very laser stuff today. I'm using both Vectric and LaserGrbl. I don't know much about Lightburn's customization capabilities for Gcode output. LaserGrbl writes out Gcode that is Centroid compatible, and it lets you write your own header, footer, and multipass mid code sections, so it is easy to get all those "special" gcodes and macros added it. I suspect Lightburn is the same. A lot of the recent new router additions to the stock CNC12 came from collaboration with AVID. A lot of AVID's customization that is on top of that are just simple macros, so you can do that stuff yourself easily. For example, I like the stuff AVID has done with the laser, but its a little too integrated for me because I do a lot more experimentation rather than production, so I want it a little more stand alone and not tied to the spindle. It will be easy to make the changes I want for myself.

Hi Tyler, You are hitting on the one thing I think falls short on CNC12 (at least compared to mach3/4). They do have a graphing screen, but the current one is only offline. However, in CNC12 5.20 they did make it so you can jog around and it will show where the origins are, workpiece boundaries, and the tool is relative to the toolpath. So you can find out if all the zero settings and the toolpath fit on a weird shapped workpiece. However, I don't know if the live version of graphing is also updated with that info. This version should be coming to AVID soon. Centroid needs to do some improvement on the CNC12 screen. It is bascially set up to be optimal for a smaller LCD touchpanel that you'd see on a large CNC mill. However, everyone I know on a CNC router uses a bigger monitor, and the screen real estate is not used very well for that situation. I also had the line counters and percent complete statistics on Mach4, and I would like to see the toopath graph along with all the other info. Rigth now their graph drops on top of everything else when its turned on. They have added a lot of improvements lately for CNC router use, and I think they are planning on more so I'm hopefull that some of the things we're used to having on display all the time will be coming.

@@JNWoodworks Thank you for the reply! I wanna switch over so bad!

I don't think I'd have a concern with that. The test I did with the very long, dull bit in Mesquite was probably worse than aluminum, especially since you'd typically be using a smaller diameter mill for aluminum. You'd want to make sure that the collets were not getting chips dropped in them when doing tool exchages, that would be my biggest concern.

Hi Stephanie, Thanks for all the good questions. First, 0.23" plywood (especially baltic birch) is kinda the upper limit of cutting capability for that laser. Plywood has a lot of glue and that makes it harder to cut than plain wood as well. If I remember right, the 15W will cut quarter inch stuff at maybe around 15 inches per minute, but will probably take 2-3 passes. In the above video I'm using a 45W laser which handles quarter inch wood like butter. Your laser has less diodes and a different lens. You can try the procedure I outlined in the video with the 15W laser. The 45W laser I was using has a longer focal length lens than your 15W, so you'l have a shallower depth that you want to set the focus at for cutting deep. I never characterized my 15W laser when I had it with the above method, but I'm going to guess a good starting point would be to set the focus to a depth of about 0.070" or so below the surface. Make sure you've established your best height for the smallest focus on the surface first (I've gone over that in some other videos), and then you know that number, just set your Z zero 0.070" lower than that. As far as not hurting your laser/maintanence. #1 thing is to keep the lenses clean. If they get dirty, performance will drop off rapidly. At some point the dirt can get hot enough to damage the lens as well. If you always operate it with the nozzle on and good airflow (~5-10 lpm for etching, 10-15 lpm for cutting) you lens should stay clean. The airflow keeps soot and stuff from getting in the lens. Its good to inspect the lens once in a whle though just to be sure - I had one laser where a spider got in there and built a little web in the nozzle once. I looked at the lens and it was clean and then inside the nozzle and wow. The other thing is you can damage a laser with very reflective material like aluminum. If you are etching painted aluminum, you don't need to run at full power, so its better to only use maybe 20% or so. I did a quite a bit of marking stainless steel with my 15W laser and didn't damage it, so thats probably ok. The other good thing (for you as well), is to keep the smoke away from the fan so it doesn't blow through and make the fan and cooling fins dirty.

I was thinking the same thing. I now have the servos installed, and they are definitely smoother, but the Acorn controller cleaned up the vibration so much on the laser there is no improvement to be had there. So now I'm looking at optimizing the opposite way where I keep the vibration low, but push the speed up until the vibration starts to increase again. It would be great to get back some runtime performance.

You're welcome Steve.

I haven't looked in detail about the controller only, but I don't think the upgrade is that much. The price you are quoting I think might be for the whole EX control kit which would include motors and wiring. I can't answer if it's worth it for anyone else, it is for me.

Thanks. Ya, I know the recommendations are to not run other things on the CNC computer (mach4 was the same way). However, I haven't had any issues with it so far and I have to have something to do while the job is running :-). Actually, I'm pushing it right now (running Vcarve simulations, etc.) just to see if I can find the limit. If it doesn't fail, then I'll feel fine about browsing and email while its running. No, I wouldn't want smaller icons on a 15" touchscreen for sure, but I have a 28" screen on my cnc computer and I'm a mouse guy :-) If they doubled the column and rows, you could simply double up the spaces to keep the same size as they are now, the graphics scale accordingly (just like you see some people do with the cycle start/stop buttons). The CNC router users I know usually use a normal flat screen LCD and are much bigger (some even put 54" TV's up on the wall). Centroid is trying to cover wider markets (like get more into DIY and small shop users), so they need to expand their flexibility a little to support things out of the normal for big industrial CNCs that just have a touchpanel on the side IMO.

Hey Chris, good to hear from you. Yup,. I'm pretty happy. Just added servos last night too and they are super smooth.

I'm sorry, what do you mean by Lai? Did you mean DIY? I would definitely recomend either Acorn, or Acorn6 depending on what you are building. The Acorn 6 has twice as many I/O's (16 each), and a seperate PWM output. It also supports 2 more axis. However, it is bigger physically and pricewise. So it just depends on how much other stuff you want to hook up. I think they probably have the same level of actual performance between them, just a total number of resources difference. I like the Acorns because they basically have the breakout board built in, and they have the external relay boards, so its a very complete kit.

Thanks Scott. You are correct, you can create buttons to do special jogging (and centroid already has a bunch of those to choose from that I haven't explored yet), or pretty much anything you can imagine. Besides what you mentioned, when the WMPG is left on, it overrides the jog speed, and I am now starting to get myself into the habit of either turning it off when I'm done or putting it back into fast jog because otherwise I inevitably will try to jog with the keyboard or VCP later and will be on slow jog :-)

I think so too. The technology is pretty cool.

Hello. There is enough vacuum from the air through the mist head that it easily draws the IPA through. I put a check valve on the container to try and prevent evaporation to come out of the container, but to be able to draw air in. So when you have a completely empty system you can just blow on the check valve stem to prime the line quickly if its empty, but it will prime itself pretty easily as well.

@@JNWoodworks Awesome, thanks for the fast reply!

Do you mean vector work? The rastering only has a couple of the G4 commands in the Gcode so it doesn't really affect it. The G4 P2 that I have in the post processors is only 2 mS, so it shouldn't make much of an addition to execution time. I haven't tried removing that for over a year. It's very possible with the latest Mach4 and ESS plugin versions it may not be needed anymore.

@@JNWoodworks yes that is what I meant. Thanksnfor the reply, I need to try again as well with the latest versions. It is slowed down due to accelerations when it has to go to full stop and start, so when I do many engravings like 20-30 coasters the time adds up to hours..

Thanks!

All the line between the compressor and tank are 1/2" lines (just like the stock ones). There isn't that much flow from the compressor to need 3/4" lines. I just did 3/4" lines from the tank output to all locations in my shop so I would not have large pressure drops when pulling a lot of air. I think I got all the fittings at Lowes and Home Depot. I just used 1/2 soft copper tubing and flared the ends and used a regular flare nut on the cooler fittings. I have used those link belts on previous table saws, they make a huge difference in noise and vibration. I don't recall hearing much/any belt noise on the compressor (both of the pullies on that are pretty big diameter, so less of a memory effect for the small pully) though, but something to think about. Most of noise left is just the compressor and motor from what I can tell.

Unfortunately almost none of my bits have enough shank to stick above the top of the collet to get an oring on them. Many of the smaller ones are actually below the surface of the collet top.

Ya, it's nicer if it's aligned with the spindle. I did that before with two line generators that were mounted in my dust shoe 90 degrees apart. Then you just turn them until the two lines converge under the spindle. However, it is hard to keep it aligned well, if anything gets bumped you have to realign them.

Hi Pete, hows retirement? I'm not sure if this crosshair will work for a drill press. Those usually are a pair of line generators that you adjust to get them to cross over right on the axis of the chuck (that is the type if thing I originally did on my CNC). So you would want to look for a "laser line generator" instead, and you'd need two of them. They come in the same formfactor though and are on Amazon.

@@JNWoodworks Hi Jim, retirement is good. I'm still too busy with property maintenance, family issues and such, but overall it's good. I'm finally getting more time to spend in my shop. How is retirement going for you? I thought about what you said regarding the cross hair and it made good sense. Amazon had a 2 LED clamp-on device that I bought instead the single LED device. I just did a quick and dirty setup and test and so far I'm pleased. It works better than the original laser assembly that is build in to the Jet drill press. I may try to adopt the lasers from the clamp on unit to the obsolete Jet unit. We'll see. Just a note, I enjoy your channel, good info and tips. And, it's nice to see a familiar face🙂

@@pgoessnitzer Yes, retirement is busy, I don't know how I ever got much done and still worked. If the JET drill press laser is like the one on my powermatic, then they are probably junk. Now you have me thinking I need to look for the aftermarket one too :-)

Ok, just for you ;-). Just added a link to a document in the details secion above.

​@@JNWoodworksThank you Jim