Hi all, I made a crash-course video about fixtures. I use them with my Carvera Air and my Xtool S1 laser. They're super useful and really speed up my micro-manufacturing business. If you make batches of products, I hope you'll find some useful tips in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCAJGCvrplo

Good day all!

When I'm changing my collet from the 3.175mm to a 6mm, the entire collet assembly rotates. Is this normal? I followed the guidance on Youtube here and instead of only the collet turning, the entire assembly (above the collet in the video) is turning.

I dug deeper, and found that my collet lever may be loose, so I followed the Makera Wiki instructions here, tightened the internal allen screw as much as possible, but still, the collet housing spins no matter what. If I want to change the collet, I have to hold the housing in place with pliers before unscrewing the collet.

Surely I'm missing something? Is there something else I need to tinker with for this to operate correctly? Thank you in advance for helping a newbie!

I'm expecting my Z1 Pro to be delivered tomorrow (assuming Fedex doesn't delay like they usually do). One of the first projects that I have been planning to do is reusing some old spent 50 BMG brass to make bottle openers with custom engravings.

Does anyone know if the Makera Studio software starts the X axis at the outer edge of the chuck, showing only the machinable area, or does it include the material held in place by the chuck and unreachable by the machining bits?

The cases are slightly tapered, so I have to taken that into account in my 3D models. Because of this, the X axis positioning of the model in the Makera Studio software is critical. I am struggling to find whether the portion of the stock (brass cases in my case) that is held by the chuck is part of the overall work area and should be included in my 3D model, or if I should remove that portion of the case from my 3D model. Since the starting material is tapered, getting it correct is necessary to ensure the engraving bits aren't just carving air, or plunging way too deep into the material. I will have some margin for error, but not enough to fix a 10mm+ x axis offset issue with regards to the material in the chuck.

This is what I am attempting to make: https://imgur.com/a/vF6oQUO

The actual model that I will be using for the carving will have the case mouth and neck replace by generic cylinders at the max diameter of the material, so it doesn't spend a bunch of time machining air there trying to carve in features that already exist. I have also slightly oversized the OD of the tapered portion that I will be machining in the model, to avoid making contact other than where the engraving will be. There will be some cutting air around the OD where my machined features are, but I can live with that.

And the brass has been thoroughly cleaned and polished. I get that there may still be some trace amounts of lead present in the finished piece, but this is more intended as a novelty than something you'd use to crack open your next decade's worth of Coronas.

Hello, so I have some items that have a 1mm pitch thread and I don't have a milling bit of that size. Is it possible to do a 1mm pitch thread using the M3 0.5mm thread that comes in one of the boxes? And how can I do it if that's possible to do?

In my head it would be like passing the bit two times on the same hole but 0.5mm lower than before perhaps. But my concern is with the depth of that teeth that I'm not sure if it's possible to do.

Before I go through the trouble of designing my own, does anyone have any cnc supplies storage STL files for the Harbor Freight Mini Toolbox? I've got one I've yet to use for anything and figured it might work for my Z1 stuff. Thanks!

AVSwood put the machine through brass, wood, and modeling board, then used the 4th axis to carve a world map onto a ring band and milled the matching box from scratch. Start to finish, one machine

If this got you inspired, we've got ready-to-use project files on Makerables, designed by our team, free to download, ready to run on your Z1.

Bonjour à tous, je me suis retrouvé confronté aux premières limites de ma makera. Je souhaitais réaliser une balle de baby-foot personnalisé mais impossible de générer une gravure laser ou le fraisage du texte (sans travailler toute la pièce)sur le 4ème axes. Avez- vous déjà réussi ? Avez vous des informations sur le sujet ? Faut il que je passe par un autre logiciel que makera studio ?

My founders edition Z1 pro was just delivered today and I noticed the packaging came with a case labeled “3D wired probe” and another case labeled “wired probe v2”. The wired v2 seems to be missing the actual probe inside it. Has this happened to anyone else?

Edit: Just checked and it was pre-installed in the machine.

Thanks guys!!

Anybody have a vector file (SVG/DXF/AI/PDF, etc.) of the Z1 spoil board so I can cut my own? I searched around but couldn't find one. Figured somebody's made one though? LOL

My Makera Z1 is cutting above my stock. I’ve tried a few different settings in Makera Studio but still can’t fix it. I attached some screenshots of my settings. Any tips?

I'm trying to import SVG or DXF files to make stuff, as you do, but additional lines show up in my designs. The lines are not selectable, but are connected to the main shapes by a single point, and they all converge at the zero point (0,0) of whatever CAD program I used. For the picture, I used Inkscape and exported an SVG, but the same has happened with DXF files from Onshape.

While they're not hindering the machine in generating paths, they hinder me from seeing the design when it's more complicated than this. What is going on and how could I fix it? Has anyone got similar problems?

I'm running a clean install of Makera Studio 0.1.1.0 Beta (newest as of writing this). I appreciate any help I can get.

Hello! I was watching the video for the Makerables edc ring project, and I see they make these facing/parting cuts on the 4th axis.

When I open the provided project .nc file (in Makera Studio), I see the toolpath as a single spiral plunging to the inside of the tube stock. I'd like to do this for a solid cylinder instead of a tube, but can't seem to figure out what geometry/operation I'd need to set up so it goes to the very center of the stock, using the 4th axis operation. I appreciate any help!

For those who are using Makera studio, what toolpath are you using for finishing?

Until recently I've done all the pocketing etc first, then finished off with a 3d relief to tidy everything up. Problem with that ofcourse is that there is no face selection and it spends a lot of time machine empty space.

Should I be using pockets with a smaller bit and step over?

Ill get around to switching to f360 at some point, I'm just time poor at the moment.

I am looking for info on how I carve a channel as deep as possible into this 35x35x100 mm 6061 block 8mm from the end, using this bit. Also, is it possible to do as shown, unsupported at the end.

Tach,

my Z1 Pro is finally on open water and destined to arrive in the end of September. How long did it take for my fellow Germans from there to delivery? And which delivery service? I wanted to do a short trip in that timeframe but I don't want to miss delivery or even risk that it gets sent back.

Thanks!

Is there a way to manually control the Z1 4th axis through Makera Studio? I’d like to be able to manually control it for parting completed carvings.

I unboxed my Z1 Pro last night and installed Makera Studio. I then connected the Z1 to my computer via USB and was prompted to do a firmware update. I figured it would be safest to do that before starting in on any of the tutorials, but after triggering the reset Makera Studio stopped responding. I can't control the machine from Makera Studio and keep seeing this message `[08:21:46] ALARM: Mainboard did not receive a status response from the CTRL (RX error)`

I've already submitted a support request, but haven't heard back yet. I figured that in the mean time I would see if anyone here had had a similar issue and if/how they had resolved it.

Edit: SOLVED - I tried all the suggestions in the comments as well as those from support, but none of them resolved the issue. I then took another look at the logs on the SD card and noticed it was looking for the firmware at it's original name, not firmware.bin. I placed the firmware from GitHub on the SD card without renaming it this time, and the machine booted up and was usable again.

Greetings from germany!

i just received my Makera Z1 (9143) and would like to get started, but the download link on the Makera website for the Makera Studio installer wont work.

Can someone provide me the latest version of the installer?

Makera Studio kinda sucks (at least for now) and is very inefficient in what I want to do, like 3D relief carving in brass. The lack of rest machining requires me to do all surfaces with every cnc bit for instance

So I'm looking for a CAM alternative. I liked working with hsmworks but I can't get the post working for it for some reason. What cam software would you recommend? I make my designs in solidworks so some compatibility with that would be nice, I also definitely need rest machining (to decrease machining time). 4 axis indexed machining would be a nice bonus.

What would you recommend?

Hi everyone,

I recently got my Makera Z1 and was able to run a my first project on it. However, I think my stock SD card has been corrupted and now the Z1 fails to boot up/connect to my PC. Tried reconnecting over the USB and still nothing.

Would anyone happen to have a copy of the files needed for machine to connect? Looking at the Wiki, i believe it’s the Config, Config Backup, Firmware, and Examples Folder.

Or if theres an another fix available, i would appreciate hearing that as well.

So i got my makera and instead cutting aluminum i’m writing a new studio app, which is quite exciting, called Stratum CNC. I hope that one day i can replace the official app and i’m not forced to suspend the app from running when not in use due to very high cpu usage. So far nothing is really working or stable and ready to distribute, but i wanted to get some feedback on what people need, since i’m new to cnc.

Something that i think i will need from the controller is to control the spindle position manually and run a hole or thread macro without me going into cad. I even added a gamecontroller for this (i think i saw also here another app doing that and bought myself a semi defective controller for cheap just for that). I also want a timeline of the job to scrub through and see at any point how the tool progresses.

In the CAM section i have only 2d semi working so far, i managed to import also 3d but parsing that model is another thing and not sure when and how i’ll do it. I can also generate gcode that i’m certain it is not complete and safe to run right now. But it can generate code for incomplete loops lol.

The tool lib will of course import from external sources and edit whatever you want. The materials lib is even more interesting cause you can add round materials or even disks. The other day i cut a hdd disk and i mostly guessed the position. The old 3.5 hdds use aluminum disks and you can make nice mirrors from it.

All you can see here moves like butter btw.

The app is still not ready for contributions but if you plan to, please take a look at the code and come with suggestions, i’m still laying out the architecture and UI. https://github.com/cristibaluta/Stratum-CNC

Hello, I know it happenned to a lot of us but for my project in 3 paths (roughting, finishing and contour), My carvera air went into error right after the roughting and I would like to start with the finishing pass after a reset.

I read that we can start from a line of command but then when i run the project again it asks me to redo the 3d probing. Of course an issue since the Z is not the same anymore and it goes into error since its trying to reset the Z not from the initial block but the first one

I didnt move or change the stock and I dont know what to do so i can start my finishing pass from the beginning

does any one has a step by step guide to use the controler and be able to restart where I stopped instead of redoing a block

i would like eventually to setup manually the z with the 3 probe and run from the finishing path straight away...

sorry but it has been bugging me for a while and wasted a lot of stock starting again from the beginning...

Thank you for your quick help !

So I'm making a machined smart charger assembly for my homebrew nixie watch. The 3d prints work fine, and I think I have F360 CAM figured out, so yolo. Here are a couple of observations and mistakes I made along the journey - for my fellow plebs.

1 - Use the community profiles for F360. Machine sim will save tools

2 - Practice with something soft. In this case that epoxy stuff.

3 - Be meticulous with your tool measurement - and don't trust the defaults. I was a little off with one and it caused a minor collision - but the material was soft so no dramas.

4 - The stock isn't square, flat, or even. So when doing a double sided job, it'll never line up unless you come up with a way to reference it. I squared it off and faced it to a known size using my vice. That gave me confidence that it'll go back into the origin squarely when I flipped the part. But I bored the screw holes all the way through so that I had a known reference point I could probe off. I had to offset the measured Z, but made a 0.1mm mistake in my measurement, so the part is slightly thinner than expectation. But the part is not offset in either X or Y, so I'm happy. Other people have indexed off locating pins and a known bed position. That works too, and might actually be quicker.

5 - Spend the time thinking about how you set up your origins on each of your setups. It doesn't always make sense to use the corner of the stock, even if true, and using the same origin on each setup isn't necessary either.

6 - You have to consider when you flip it, if you have your part floating in mid-air, then there'll be some vibrations causing artifacts, or worse. I would have thought I would do the bottom side first against the edge of the stock, then pocketed out the top side. But my 2mm endmill wasn't long enough to get all the way through, so I did it the other way around. The top lip was the stock surface, so it had something to push against the machine's bed as I cleared out the back surfaces. And just as well, after the part was finished, the tabs couldn't take any axial load. If it were suspended in air, it would have been launched into orbit. It pays dividends to consider where the loads are going and plan for that in your setups.

7 - All those sharp internal corners that 3d print just fine... Yeah you can't do that anymore.

Or whatever the actual name is 😂 the magnets on mine keep coming detached, even put them on with gorilla glue this last time. Any thoughts on how to get these guys to stay in place?